I remember the first time I checked a website from my smart phone. It was like stepping out onto a glass bridge...a step of faith, praying my data plan would catch me and save us from overuse fees.
Trying something new is always like that. The tentative stretching of the toes onto new territory, testing the ground underneath for stability before we put full weight on feet. Then we do it again, this time with more confidence, and soon what was once a leap of faith becomes the everyday mundane.
Practice makes perfect. It is so with grace. It feels so scandalous, that moment of salvation, when we take the deep breath and say in our hearts, Yes, this is what I believe. I believe I am not enough. I believe I cannot save myself. I believe Christ can do what I cannot.
With practice, there is less fear and trembling each time we accept grace. May it never feel like our right, but always the gift it is. When we stumble and fall (a million times a day), may we reach hands to sky and simply feel the love raining down instead of shying away and covering up the stain left by sin.
She is the scandalous spontaneous, the one who is still a toddler at 5 1/2. She reaches her pink tongue out to touch the stamens of the crabapple blossoms, and her grin is infectious as she urges us to try. It's sweet, like honey, she says. We all laugh - the craziness of this, tasting blossoms like honey bees - and then we, too, stretch tongues and sense sweet and dissolve into gales of giggles over our own silliness. We talk about this - faith like a little child - the child who reaches out to taste God's goodness and never stops to wonder whether it is a crazy idea or not. Trust is so simple, it terrifies and paralyzes us as adults. We ponder the consequences - what if He's not as good as He says He is? What if I should be working harder, what if I don't deserve this grace?
Just like the drops of sweet on the yellow tips of each cherry blossom, His grace just is. It exists and has already been given, whether we reach out to take the gift or not. If we don't, we will never taste the sweetness that stands waiting for us.
Practice radical acceptance. Be the little child, ready to try anything, leaning hard on the Rock of salvation. Simply believe. Simply accept. Simply trust. Throw off the weight of causality, because He undid the laws of the universe at the Cross, and begs us be free from the gravity of the world so that we can soar with Him even through these days scalded by the curse of the world.
What have you done lately to practice radical acceptance of the freedom of the Cross? What can you do today in belief of Grace?
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