Patience, Grace, and Forgiveness

This week God worked hard to give me the wonderful gifts of patience, grace, and forgiveness. It would have been so much nicer if I had been the recipient of these extraordinary blessings (and I probably was many times in many ways) but the gifts he worked hard to give me this past week were not for me, but for me to give. I had a crash course in learning to be patient when I didn’t want to be, giving unsolicited grace when I wanted to prove how right I was instead, and letting go and moving on (forgiveness) to take hold of the even more wonderful gift that comes when God gets his way instead of me getting mine.

I love how God does that. When I am weak, his strength is evident and more than enough. And when I am stuck in a place I can’t get out of, all I need to do is give the wheel over to God and he drives me straight through it to the place he wants me to be. It sounds so simple doesn’t it? Actually it is. It’s just hard to do. If there is one thing I like, it’s being in control, knowing what is going on and having a plan in place to get me through a situation. The allusion of being in control is powerful and I feel safe but it’s not real. I’m not really in control even when I trick myself into thinking I am. God is in control and when I stop grabbing at the wheel, when I stop insisting on my way, he guides me through the hills and valleys and tunnels of life.

Receiving patience, grace and forgiveness is such a humbling and moving thing. But giving them is so much more so. It’s hard work, but so worth the effort of passing on these priceless gifts and watching them grow and spread throughout the world. Imagine a world filled and overflowing with patience, grace and forgiveness. God already has and that’s why he started the work towards spreading these incredible blessings through his people. And this week he gave me the opportunity to spread it just a little bit further.

That’s the thought I’m going to hold onto when the enemy and my own pride try to trick me into picking back up and holding onto things I’ve chosen to let go of, when my patience runs too thin to stand on and when judgement tries to overcome the grace already given.