i was thinking through this year and the last and i'm just amazed at how God works in our hearts to change and transform us continually. God is so good! the one thing i just can't seem to get over is the grace He pours on us. this year has been life-altering for me, where i am just beginning to grasp the concept of His grace, no longer weighed down by unrelenting legality or pendular faith based on emotions. That yes, I am sinful, flawed, and i fall short in all aspects, but that i am a work in progress, and His grace blankets over all these things, cloaking me in full righteousness before a Holy God. Now THIS is Good News! And how comforting that His HS works in us bit by bit to make clear the things we ought to strip & change in our lives. But never by our own effort, for it is Him who keeps us from stumbling, and Him who presents us blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy (Jude 24). =)
Last year I was reminded of an important lesson, God doesn't want us to 'do', He simply wants us to 'be'. That out of being and basking as His child, the fruit comes as the overflow of it all. This year I'm learning that it is Grace which connects and defines these things. We are able to "be" in Him by His grace, and by His grace we are able to "do". How wonderful it is to open our eyes and see His grace at work all around us & in us!
On another note, after all the boy drama of 2009, this year has been a breath of fresh air basking in singleness. It's mindboggling how God so easily puts a lovesong in our hearts for Him, for He is the one love that lasts eternally and loves bottomlessly! And how wonderful to know that in our singleness lies our full devotion and single-mindedness to Him & His purposes for us :) At the Women of Purpose Conference, it was renewing to be stirred on again in Matthew 28:16-20. And I pray He'd continue keeping me single-minded, using my energy and mind-space to focus on heavenly things, that my heart would yearn not for myself or for a relationship, but rather i would yearn so deeply for others to grow in knowledge and love for our Lord Jesus Christ, looking not to my own interests but the interests of others placing them before myself so that they may be saved (1cor10:33)!
Father, by Your grace here I stand, use me.
