More Grace Than You Ever Imagined

Submitted by Jennifer Power

I love books. I once heard books are a form of time travel – allowing two people to enter a sort of conversation, despite time and space. With books we enter the mind of great people who have gone before us – to cut through small talk and get to the heart of the matter in a way which often evades me in my relationships with people in typical settings.

I have often found God gives me special grace for certain books at particular times in my walk with Him. There have been a number of books which I have tried to read but have not been able to track with or with which I had little interest. I will then later read that same book and experience the author speaking out what I did not even realize was on my heart (or exactly what my heart had been thirsting for). This phenomenon has occurred many times in my life, and maybe it has for you as well.

Sometime this last week, I came across an article about one of my favorite authors called Richard Foster on Teaching the Spiritual Disciplines to Your Church and Your Children and in it, one of Foster’s books Sanctuary of the Soul is referenced. A few years ago I began reading a number of books by Richard Foster and Dallas Willard, and as I read this article, I tried to remember if Sanctuary of the Soul was one of the books I had read. Unable to remember, I carried on with the rest of my day.

On the way home from work that evening, I thought to look in the center console of my car and found the audio version of Sanctuary of the Soul and realized it was a book I had started to read but did not get very far into before losing interest. I decided to start listening to it again on the drive home that evening.

I immediately sensed that God had once again placed a particular book at the right time in my life. As I listened, Foster shared his first experience of hearing the quiet inward voice of God. He then talked about how we can distinguish between the voice of God and all the other voices we might hear.

Last week, a question formed in my mind about which I decided to pray and seek an answer.

How much does receiving grace from God rely on obedience?

I have often looked at the body of Christ and been convinced we are required to act with God in order to enter the abundant life He has for us. I have held furiously to the belief we cannot simply sit back and let God’s grace do all the work for us, resting on the promises of God without any effort or exertion on our part. If God’s tendency was to operate in such a way, then surely there would be more victory, more joy, more peace, more love, and more hope in the daily life of His followers. When I have looked at the lives of those who really seem to have a life steeped in these qualities, I see discipline as a characteristic of all these individuals. They want it. They go after it. They are all in. They are striving towards obedience in every aspect of their living. They do not give up and are not lazy.

I have thus made it my pursuit to live such a way as to not miss anything God would desire to do in and through me. In this pursuit, I have been hard on myself (my husband would say this is surely a gross understatement). As I mentioned last week when I talked about Failing in Christ, I have relied so much on my part in the equation that I have often fallen into despair whenever I have fallen short (an all too common occurrence). It was never that I did not trust God was powerful enough, but rather that I believed in my failings. I had stepped outside of the path of His will and thus had stepped outside of His grace. Yes, I knew He would forgive me and welcome me back, but I thought in those moments of inadequacy I had entered a zone of laziness or failure which were outside His will and thus were outside of His grace.

I have only ever blamed myself for not being where I or God would desire me to be, and probably I have not been altogether wrong.

While I drove home listening to Sanctuary of the Soul last week, Richard Foster began sharing some of the characteristics of God’s voice. He talked about how God’s voice is (among other things) all mercy and all grace. I rewound and listened to his description a couple times before, overcome, turning off the recording.

In that moment, I heard this gentle whisper from God:

There is more grace and mercy for you than you have ever before imagined.

Just moments after hearing Richard Foster describe his own experience with hearing from God and just days after asking Him a question, God spoke to me, and these words have been such a source of encouragement to me these past few days.

This whisper from God was not a direct answer to the question I had posed earlier in the week, but it did speak to the question I did not even realize I was actually asking which was:

How much grace is there for someone like me?

To which God has replied:

There is more grace and mercy for you than you have ever before imagined.

I cannot even write this today without tears.

God has been so good to me. His grace and love for me never cease to astound. I have never doubted His grace and love – it has been a great gift from Him that in my whole life I have not doubted His goodness and power. I just do not think I have often begun to grasp just how deep His love runs specifically for me. It has been a revelation which has been given to me slowly and over many years and which I have no doubt is still now only beginning.

I often feel I am at both the same time both well along the path and just starting out. Every time He reveals something new to me, there is a freshness and excitement which feels like a beginning. And yet, I look backwards at my life and see a path well walked together, He and me. He is my home and has been for as long as I can remember. Somehow, I am at the same time both home and coming home.

He is your home too. Come home to Him.

What He has told to me is true for you too – it is true for you, your children, your neighbors, and every person you will ever encounter.

There is more grace and mercy for us all than we have ever before imagined.