in the fury of the moment

a few of my favorite things

Twinkly lights on trees.
Orange Cafe au Laits.
Narrow, squeaky theatre chairs.
Not enough snow to go snowboarding, but just enough for a 1-minute snowball fight.
A certain ninny boy from South Carolina.
The incomprehensible grace of God.

These are a few of my favorite things from this past weekend.

It was one of those weekends that found me surprised when Monday arrived. I haven't had one of those in a while. I didn't realize how full it was until last night, when I crashed into my bed at about 9:30 and woke up in the morning with a sweater and jeans on. My dogs were licking my face, begging for me to take them for a walk, and all I could do was lay there and stare at the clock, which I was convinced was lying to me.

Even now, as I sit at my desk and try to calculate just how much I really don't want to be here ... I feel unworthy. Unworthy of such a wonderful weekend. Undeserving of these feelings I'm having. Not entitled to feel this much happiness and peace all at the same time. Not good enough to fully embrace this new day in which God has placed me. I feel like there is something I should have done to merit these things, as if there is anything I could ever really do to deserve any of the good things that God brings into my life. And this is when God reminds me that there is nothing I could ever do to deserve any of this. I scrub these filthy rags, somehow trying to make them clean and presentable and pleasing to the Lord, hoping that they will be an offering suitable for Him. But these grand ideas of my self-righteousness are just that -- ideas. God looks at them, and looks at the desperate expression on my face, and He gently pushes the rags aside. "Stop your vain efforts to please me" He tells me. There's nothing I could ever do ... nothing that I need to do. And yet it's almost as if I find this comfort in trying to please Him, and trying to do things on my own. It's so much easier to feel like I earned something, and I guess my stubborn pride tells me that I need to earn my own way. The crazy but wonderful thing about grace is that I can't earn my way and I don't need to even try.

I was recently reading a biography of a 19th century Scottish minister named Horatius Bonar. I admit, I was originally just attracted by the name Horatius. But as I read more about him, and more of his writings, I saw a passion in him that doesn't seem to be in many ministers today. I don't exactly agree with all his theological stances, but there was a fire in this guy's heart that would probably be nice to have around right now. I stumbled across the following quote as I was in the midst of my struggle with grace and my feelings of unworthiness:

Grace burst forth spontaneously from the bosom of eternal love and rested not until it had removed every impediment and found its way to the sinner's side, swelling round him in full flow. Grace does away the distance between the sinner and God, which sin had created. Grace meets the sinner on the spot where he stands; grace approaches him just as he is. Grace does not wait till there is something to attract it nor till a good reason is found in the sinner for its flowing to him. ... It was free, sovereign grace when it first thought of the sinner; it was free grace when it found and laid hold of him; and it is free grace when it hands him up into glory.
- Horatius Bonar

By the way, I'm back, and hopefully I'll be writing more than once a month.

posted by Krista @ 1:34 PM