Everything Is Connected, but...

Our attempt to understand the world

posted  july 2011

Grace and Faith

Grace means very little other than to have an effortlessness about one. The picture that I have has us gifted by God, of course. But then Grace is not what He directly gave us; it is merely the quality that our life takes on (ease, outwardly visible ease in all we do) after he has led us to a certain point in our spiritual journey.

Similarly, Faith is simply a
knowing how things will turn out. It has levels. At a small level, faith may be knowing that books drop when you let go of them (because of gravity, perhaps) At a large level, faith is simply a knowing that because of God in our lives, everything is going to be easy.

Faith and Grace are related. Faith brings grace and grace brings more faith.

I think there is a great deal to this. But it is the long and short of how the world manifests itself in response to what is inside us. Faith brings that, too. It is what we believe in (have faith about) that does this, especially when the faith is not in wonderfulness of creation.

Trust (faith) in Jesus and His perfection allows us to take his hand and walk beside him on the water.

Not that it is easy to live from moment to moment without doubt claiming us. It is as if we walk a mountain range, touching only the peaks of each mountain. Surly we cannot remain always at the peak. Yet I do think it is possible someday. Faith creates the grace that we are looking for. God, meanwhile, grows faith within us.
[september 2007]

This is like the problem of learning; [meanwhile there is work to be done. If the work is not done], the lesson--a thing of short-term memory--vanishes and must be reexperienced. This is because the lesson is spiritual, and spiritual things lack much physical substance. The brain cannot really store it in a memory.

The trick is to live so much in the "now" that spiritual experiences become a flow. Then one does not feel so tempted to try to hang onto the past spiritual experiences. I think it is like the story of Manna in Exodus. God gives us our daily bread and we use what we can and the rest rots away if we try to keep it for another day.
The point is the fleetingness of spiritual contact — [therefore the need of work]. I have struggled with this fleetingness as I try to hang onto gifts God has graced me with. There may be a good feeling that comes with the experience and I may want to hang on to it. But if I try to do so, I cannot. In this sense, anything we do in a state of grace probably “obtains” us some fruit. The point though, is that we don’t—indeed can’t—retain this quality.

We CAN, though, get more of it simply by coming back to the present (in humility and all that, of course.)        
    
posted 4-1-2009 / published 2-28-2011

von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen / today's prayer

Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen,
erwarten wir getrost, was kommen mag.
Gott ist bei uns am Abend und am Morgen
und ganz gewiss an jedem neuen Tag.

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning
and so is each and every day.

[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]

[posted 1-10-2011]