Essential No. 3: Know God's Grace
Noah lived in a different time and season where wickedness and evil ruled the hearts of the majority of people. Everywhere you turned it was there, staring you in the face.
”The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Genesis 6:5
It got to the point that it was so bad that “…the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” Genesis 6:6
It is good theology to know that storms and trials don’t just come out of nowhere. In this particular instance, it is coming as a consequence of the sins of many people. It is bad theology that it is your sin alone that has led to stormy consequences. It’s possible that could happen, but it is not always the case.
Nonetheless, storms do come and while knowing our destiny and God’s calling for our lives is important, here’s one thing you can’t miss to ensure a storm proof life.
“But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” Genesis 6:8
Fractured Souls
Regardless of our destiny or how clear our universal and unique calling to us may be, there always remains a nagging reality that we are fractured on the inside. We all know that we don’t have it altogether. If we don’t know that, we are delusional.
No one knows your sins, issues, the lies you believe, and secrets you keep than yourself. And no one knows how to keep it hidden than the same person. Shame keeps us from confronting our issues and dealing with them.
But just because we don’t deal with them doesn’t mean they are not there.
Noah could have played the game of pretense. It would have been easy to rationalize that the whole world was evil and that while he had issues, he wasn’t as bad as the others. He could have quietly whispered, “at least I am a good family man and I go to church.”
Confronting Our Issues
The problem with playing the game of pretense is storms do come. And when they do, the fractures in our souls that we have dismissed as minor and inconsequential can crack and cave in. What could have been averted, is now a disaster.
Confronting our issues is not about feeling guilty, rather is a daily surrender and acknowledgment that we are prone to sin like most other people. This allows us to remain sensitive and aware of fractures or potential cracks we can create when we are unaware.
Confronting our issues, however, can also be discouraging; as we cannot avoid feeling guilty knowing that we have these issues in our lives. This is where we need the favor of God, His grace.
The Favor of God
The favor of God works best when we know that we can’t fix something on our own. Why is that? Because we are so adept at fooling ourselves to believe we have no issues. And when we do that, then there is no need for the favor of God.
The key is to know we will always have issues, but God has granted us His favor through His Son Jesus Christ. In Him, we have been granted favor to come into God’s presence and present our issues and find forgiveness.
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16
But His favor does not end there. He has given us the Holy Spirit who deals, heals, and empowers us to assess and deal with our issues permanently.
The result is a life that lives in the light of the truth of our limits, but secure in the realization that God’s favor, His grace, will uphold us now and even when the storms come.
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