Connect @ Grace

I’ve finally gotten something way down in my bones and I’m celebrating.  You know how deep that is – we all do.  It is evident in our phrases like “chilled to the bone,” or “bad to the bone.”  Speaking of chilled to the bone, I’m sitting at my office desk right now with my legs literally draped over a space heater and a cup of very hot coffee grasped in both my hands in an effort to warm up.  I got so cold this morning – to the bone – that I can’t warm up.  But that is not the thing “in my bones” that I’m celebrating.

Actually I’m hesitating right now to tell you what it is because probably you already figured this out a long time ago and I’ll look really stupid.  Oh, well…

I was not made wrong.  (Yes, for those of you who know me personally you might have a different assessment, but hear me out.)  As a child growing up with neglectful and abusive parents, I assumed that my parents only behaved that way because I was wrong (i.e. the wrong sex, looked wrong, acted wrong, wrong, wrong,).  As an adult I was able to recognize what faulty thinking that was, but still the shadow of “wrongness” lingered and it followed me right into my place in the Kingdom and in my service in the Church.  Does anybody else struggle with a sneaking suspicion that God got something wrong when He wired you up?

I won’t bore you with the details of my wrong suspicions of God’s mistakes in His spiritually gifting of me, let’s just celebrate the Truth together and let it get deep down into our bones.  The Holy Spirit did not mess up when He gave spiritual gifts and abilities to me nor did He mess up when He gifted you.  This is not a new message I know, but it is in a new place within me.  By the grace of God (literally) it has passed down from merely head knowledge into “deep in my bones” knowledge and it feels really good right now.  I pray that for you too.  I pray that for all God’s children.  I pray that each one would know that God did not make a mistake when created you the first time (your physical birth) nor when He birthed and gifted you the second time (your spiritual birth).  We were not made wrong.  Yeah, God!

Holly

I’ve been working on a talk for the first week of Can You Hear Me? – a series on prayer that we’re doing in BRIGADE. The difficult thing, as with a lot of series that we talk about, is that I don’t know a great deal about prayer. Don’t get me wrong, I know with my head a little bit about prayer, and how it works, and doesn’t or shouldn’t work. But as far as being a good prayer, I’m a bum.

A little over a year ago we as a staff took it upon ourselves to work on some things in our lives that need working on. One of mine was my prayer life. I got better. Then I got worse again. Now I’m working on it yet again. This series is going to be as much for me as it will be for everyone else who shows up.

Prayer always seems to be a difficult thing for just about everybody. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some incredible prayers, but even they would say that they don’t pray as much as they would like. I’m excited for this series. Maybe I’ll learn something about myself and how God wants to communicate with me.

Jonathon