Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Glory Breaking Through {{a stewarding grace post}}

At first I was irritated. With my mess-up, my forgetfulness and failure.
 A downward look at one's own plodding feet will do that to you. 

I knew right where they were, and right where they should be, but were not. 
Movies borrowed from our local library and due back in the next 24 hours had been placed at the ready on our mud room's counter. 
I would be near a drop box on my morning drive and intended to efficiently work this errand into the morning's flow. 
Rather, our school-bound bustle found me grabbing everything around and nearbye:
purse, keys, breakfast smoothie, children with backpacks and lunch bags attached....but those dvd cases were left, passed over, and would require some retracing of my route and added time spent in driving. 

At first I was irritated.
A downward look at one's own plodding feet will do that to you. 


After kissing kiddo cheeks and squeezing tushes as they squealed their way past my reach and out of the van into school, I turned back the way I had come and began towards home and the forgotten requirement on my morning. 
I was not far into my drive back when my gaze was slowly drawn away from busy hurrying and up into the sky that stretched above my windshield. 
I had to look. I could not stop looking.

Dark clouds had hung low and heavy all of the early morning; bulging like the underside of a lumpy mattress and with as much gray, but there before me, above me, was growing a slice in the thick layers, and as I drove far below, abundant rays of bright began to pour through.


Even though I would have known that the sun was making his morning arch on the other side of that thick cloud blanket, to have The Hand of Glory slice a window through so that rays could shine and travel down against the dark backdrop took my breath away; 
this breaking through of big glory. 

"Do you know the balancings of the clouds, the wonderous works of HIM who is perfect in knowledge?" Job37:16

My irritation evaporated faster than the gray beneath those golden rays, and I began to treasure my forgetfulness for it's drawing of my pathway back along an East-ward route and this sky-wonder.  

I pulled into our driveway and stood watching as the ball of bright glory rose past and above the cloud's parting.
The glory streaming down changed rapidly with each passing moment but never lessened in beauty. 
I didn't want to miss one moment of the colors that were playing across the horizon so quickly.
I snapped a few shots on my phone, but drank the depths of this glory breaking-through gray with the eyes of my soul. 

Is this not the cry of our hearts, and the glory of Abba's love to slice through the hard, gray heaviness of life with a slit that reveals big glory happening on the other side?
Does He not delight to shine rays of beauty down against our dark backdrops such that draw our gaze up off the plodding path beneath our feet to see and know that unending of His majesty before us?
Do our soul's "face East" towards His presence? 
Are we watching at the edges of His word; driving along the routes of His Spirit's leading?
How much do we miss when we see only interruption and imperfection by the unplanned of life?
The forgetfulness, the spills, the wrong turns, the extra effort, the delay of our hopes; these are all delightful invitations for spiritual white space, authored and usable as breaking-through views of His burning love. 

There are times when His invitations over my soul's rest require intentional planning on my part, and other's are sent through His playful messengers of surprise and spontaneity. 
Whether carving out spiritual white space, or soaking it up as it pours itself out onto your path, our souls are so abundantly met in the choosing of slow lingering to catch the currents of His love and unbroken companionship. 

On that day, the unplanned of forgotten dvds at home and a retracing of my steps, resulted in a long standing still at the end of my driveway receiving rich and beautiful encouragement in hope...sights unable to be captured fully by picture or expressed adequately with this tapping away at keys, but drunk deeply by a soul overflowing with wonder at His kind and unstoppable compassion which slices into my gray mundane with breaking-through glory. 

What about you, dear reader in this place?
How is He slicing through your lumpy gray of this hard world with glory-rays bright? 
Are you looking up to catch glimpse of love big on the other side of your hard?

Do you choose a slowing down and retracing of your route to steward up His grace? 
Where are you nurturing unmarked white space in your spiritual walk, 

even in the most mundane of moments, 
that your soul might rest from the doing and simply be in His communion? 
Choose one of the spark-ups below, and then comment in this place, 
journal, or blog about it. Share your own ideas of how to steward grace?

Spark-Ups for Stewarding Grace:
{ways to choose the slow serving-up of soul-rest on grace}
  • ~Sit outdoors for an hour just to listen to the sights and sounds of your yard. Journal them onto paper or screen.
  • ~Call up a grace-sister and meet for a walk. Walk a new neighborhood or pathway.
  • ~Explore musical artists in your preferred genre. Discover a new favorite.
  • ~Plan a future date night with spouse, friend, or child at a new restaurant or cafe.
  • ~Work on a jigsaw puzzle that displays beauty alone or with your family. Listen to an online sermon. 
  • ~Set aside some of the day's to-do list just because and bake chewy cookies with your children. Take some to a neighbor.
  • ~Grab a concordance and look up scripture passages regarding God's comfort. Journal your response into a prayer.
  • Snap a picture of something beautiful around you. Use a text-on-photo app to pair words from The WORD with that image. Put it before your eyes on phone screen, dashboard, or mirror.






1 comment:

  1. I love how God broke through with his beauty outdoors and into your heart as you saw it. I can relate to those feelings and then the sudden laughter because God shows himself in some way that makes it so you can't help but smile. Lovely.

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