Glimpses of Grace #1

For weeks now, I've had the desire to write down some thoughts regarding what I believe about God - for myself, for my family, and for the world. 

This desire has been fueled by a couple of things.

First, from September 2017-May 2018, I was studying and teaching the book of Romans.

It has changed me. 

Although I've been a born again believer since I was 9 years old, I feel like I'm just now getting a glimpse of what it means to know the grace of God to me. I want to talk about that glimpse - about that grace.

A story I read days after I purposed to blog about my faith described what I sensed stirring in me. I read about a conversion experience a teenager had while he worked the graveyard shift in a Kraft Cheese factory. He wrote:

     "...what happened that night in the factory was so real that I had to tell someone. I simply couldn't NOT talk about it." (from The Insanity of God by Nik Ripken)

So, my desire to talk is present, but what does that "telling" look like? A Francis Bacon quote about writing untangling thoughts came to mind.

                        "Reading maketh a full man; 

                            conference a ready man; 

                               and writing an exact man."

I have found that thinking/writing, rethinking/rewriting makes me focus/refocus like nothing else. Writing is an effective way for me to untangle and tell my thoughts.

Now, having said that, I enter this God/grace adventure with a bit of a weight, knowing that I don't know everything, that I'm tackling the subject of the ages, that I have no degree but an appropriately labeled BS in Biology, and I'm subjecting myself to the potential criticism of literally a world of people. 

But if I am staking my life and death on some truths about God that affect my soul (and yours) both now and eternally, how can I not want to talk about that? 

It's the question of life, isn't it?

So, for at least the foreseeable future, Lord willing, I'll be here on Thursdays to talk about God and grace, what I believe and why, and the work, joy and struggle it all is most every day.

 I hope you join me.