It seems lately that everywhere I look God is putting the concept of grace in front of me.  For years I didn’t understand.  My husband would always tell me:

‘Grace isn’t something you step into or out of, it’s a big circle and you’re always in it’  or ‘You don’t go to the cupboard and get a ‘grace pill’ when you’re particularly struggling, you always need it.’

Maybe one of those phrases will help someone out there but to me they made positively no sense.

What did make sense was the phrase that grace is God’s empowering and unmerited favour.   See actually that bit about unmerited favour is just starting to sink in.

For a long time I thought I could earn God’s approval.  I was never sure what He wanted me to do, or then how long He wanted me to do it for.    It seemed I could never please Him, though that was my perception of the situation.

Unmerited favour means we are not on a star point system, earning prizes for every ten stars, but we have to receive this grace.  One simple way that I read was to just wake up in the morning and say ‘God I receive your grace for today’.   God’s empowering and favour in situations.  Life has been a lot more relaxed since I’ve been doing this, and it’s not to say I don’t have struggles, but I’m not struggling with myself over pointless things.

I recently read Lisa Velthouse’s memoir, ‘Craving Grace’.  A good Christian girl making sure she did everything just right for God, Saving Her First Kiss, and still wondering why nothing changed in her life and she was still totally frustrated, until one day she totally blew it and discovered God still loved her, and if she began to depend on Him, and Him in her instead of herself, life would change.  Even the picture on the front, I find beautiful, honey spilling over onto fingers, smoothing out the cracks.  Grace.

And linking communion to grace; isn’t this the ultimate in unmerited favour and empowerment?

The body and we have divine health, the blood and we have complete forgiveness and protection.   Partaking in this simple feast is the reminder of our covenant, of digging deeper into it, why would you not?  God does everything, and we are enriched in renewing our minds and His provision stretches deeper and wider than we ever knew.

If you, like me struggle to understand grace, I encourage you to read Unmerited Favour, Craving Grace and Living in the Miraculous.   If you want a rich Bible Study you can get your hands on right now, would you have a look at Robyn’s Quilt Chat on Grace that I’ve just typed out?  Robyn gets grace and she gets the struggle to get grace, that’s what drove her to study every verse in the Bible on grace.