That is usually at the end of my post but today I am bringing up to the top. It is not merely words that I use to close my posts or emails, not just words that I say when leave someone, not just a thought I try to keep foremost in my mind. It is a spiritual discipline that I am practicing. I didn’t even recognize it as such until recently though I had become intentional about using the phrase. Yet, lately, I have begun to see how it is changing who I am and that is the purpose of spiritual discipline, of spiritual formation.
It all started last year when I began to listen to the teaching series from Mars Hill Michigan. Rob Bell started off the year long journey through Philippians, my favorite letter in the Bible, by highlighting this simple phrase which was used over and over in the epistles and asking what would it be like if we became channels of grace and peace.
I made a commitment to speak grace and peace into the world and the phrase became attached to all my interactions. In all sincerity, it is my prayer, my blessing, and my benediction of the only thing I may have to offer. Too many times, I am at a loss for what I could say in comfort or hope yet there is always grace and peace. Each time I release those words, rather in print or verbally, I am shaken with the power that is within them. Again, they are not merely words.
It is my wish for each one I encounter to know the incredible grace of God and with grace coming before, peace follows.
Rob Bell shared a definition of grace fromSpiro Zodiakis
“Grace is the absolutely free expression of the love of God
findings its only motive in the beauty and benevolence of God”
Though I understand the free expression of the love of God, I am still working on the motive. When I began to turn from a life that had been dictated by fear and controlled by rules, imposed by others and myself, I grabbed onto grace as my life preserver in those churning waters. I tried to walk in grace in my relationships but there was still a stumbling block … my expectations. I was still trying to change myself, change others by covering the rod of rules with a velvet covering of grace. I did not yet understand that grace will only have the motive of the beauty and benevolence of God. I still don’t but my heart has shifted to wanting to know.
This practice of grace and peace is forming a filter in my mind, in front of myeyes that is teaching me how to go beyond speaking and toward being the manifestation. It is not a flawless journey; I need the grace for myself. But my hopes are that the stumbling steps will be corrected by the love of God and the desire I have to show that love.
