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Monday grace

Jul22

Becoming. That is where I am. Already and still in process.

Viewing my life from birth to birthday, I see where I’ve been and where I am. The years impart wisdom that only comes from living out my days.

I am becoming more comfortable in my skin, wrinkled and sagging as it is. I see how God is working in me through experiences of trouble, joy, sorrow, hard work, celebration to become more the person He planned when He fashioned my DNA.

There were days of hiding behind my mother’s skirts, fearful of who I was. Days when I wore a mask to hide who I might be. Days of putting on a costume in effort to conform to another’s expectations. Each was uncomfortable, and without being able to put it into words, I knew it wasn’t who I was meant to be.

Like an onion being peeled, layers of covering slowly, sometimes painfully, fell away, the pretense and pretending of trying to please and appease, of trying to be like someone else. Only let me be who God made me to be with no apology.

In no way does this give me permission to be rude or offensive, to commit sin or disregard the doctrines of Scripture I believe to be good and right. Nay, in following God’s commands I walk in the utmost liberty.

I will walk in freedom, for I have devoted myself to your commandments.
— Psalm 119:45 NLT

I am free to follow where He leads, to use the gifts He gives, to accept my personality strengths, to recognized my weaknesses and cooperate with my Creator to change where needed.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
— Philippians 1:6 NLT

I am not where I can be, fully who I was made to be. But I am becoming.

Christ in me, I become more and more, year by year, the woman He is calling out. “Will the real Peggy step forward and live out her purpose?”

I reach toward Him.

Monday grace.

The promise

Feb27

Day 3 of 40 days to Resurrection Day

Suggested activity:  Read Genesis 22:1-19

Abraham’s testing and prophetic statement that “God would provide for Himself a lamb.”

I had a little sheep-herding experience as a kid.  My cousins had a few sheep in a fenced pen, and when they got out, which seemed quite often, sometimes I joined them as we called for their dog and went to round them up.

Thoughts of sheep and lambs take me to the Old Testament.  The history of the Hebrew people begins with Abraham, and he was a shepherd.

The Bible tells us about an old man who left most of his family and all that was familiar to wander an unknown land the rest of his life.   Just because God told him to.

Abraham received and believed some of the most amazing promises.  He became an example of faith.  What does it look like to trust God when you don’t understand the ‘what’ or the ‘why’ but you trust the Who?

It looks a lot like Abraham.  His story begins in Genesis chapter 12.

God’s promises to Abraham didn’t always come quickly to fulfillment.  Some did not come to pass in his lifetime.  And I wonder how he kept the faith?

Sometime in his 80’s, Abraham was told he would have a son and that all of the world would be blessed because of his seed.   Abraham reached 100 years when that son, Isaac, was born, and that’s a long time to hold a promise close to your heart.

The challenge today is to read about God’s extreme directive for Abraham to offer the promised son on the altar of sacrifice.  It is this part of Abraham’s journey that connects us to the story of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

It was a hard command Abraham heard.  Even more difficult to act upon.  We know the ending to the story, but Abraham carried his heavy heart up the mountain along with the wood and the fire.  I cannot even imagine.

Somehow his faith sustained him even under this darkest of circumstances. Before Abraham experienced the final outcome, he uttered a most profound and prophetic statement.   When Isaac asked where the sacrifice was, the offering they would give, Abraham said:

 “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”  

The word here for “God” in Hebrew is Elohim, the Creator and Judge.  This is the One who created the plan of salvation from the very beginning; the One who must judge sin because He is righteous and holy; the One who would provide His own sacrificial Lamb because we can never, ever, ever measure up.

This is the God who promised a Savior, a Lamb who would take away the sin of the world.

Though the fulfillment of the promise was long in coming, it came!

I have some promises I am holding on to with all my heart.  I may not see all of God’s promises completed and fulfilled in my lifetime, but I choose to trust the One who made the promise until it comes to pass.

One thing I know.  When God makes a promise, He intends to keep it.  And He will do whatever necessary to do just that.

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Revised and re-posted from March 2014