Friday, March 9, 2007

The Ripple Effect of God's Grace


The ripple effect of the Lord’s love and grace in my life is truly amazing. Every step and turn of this earthly journey is filled with dangers, temptations, worries, illness, "baggage" and trials. I am only now recognizing, through God’s grace, that the more I focus on Him and pray on giving up those trials, worries and "the baggage" to Him, the more help and relief He gives me. More sign posts come into view.

His grace is everywhere. All I have to do is pray for His guidance and His will be done in my life. No longer is my journey a lonely inward drive on a dry, desert road with no navigation points in sight. It has become a road of beautiful vistas, rivers, snow capped mountain views and blooming flowers. The further I journey down that road of faith with Him the more signs He reveals.

The stone of good news dropped in the desert forms a dust cloud that dissipates in the wind. Or that same dust cloud can soon build into a storm that will obscure and obliterate everything in its path. That same stone of Christ dropped into a pond forms a ripple that spread the good news outward, endlessly intersecting other objects along the way forming new ripples.

He does not let me journey alone. The outward ripples of faith in Christ from the love of my life Valerie and my children are always close and multiplied. If only I could constantly let those ripples wash over me and flow within me instead of pulling my head below the surface to avoid them. God’s will be done, I can.

How could I know, by extending a hand of support to Scott and Tanya in their time of trial with Ethan's cancer, that their ripples would wash back over me? Their faith, love of Christ, scriptures, comments, and posts on the hospital Care Pages for Ethan, is helping me cope with Sam being in danger in Iraq.

The more I travel with Him, the more ripples are revealed. More road signs, waypoints and believers come into view to make my journey easier. The more hands I extend, the more hands are extended to me.

Like the lyrics of one our favorite Christian songs…

Our God is an awesome God….
Jay
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Scott and Tanya’s post on CarePages,
March 09, 2007 at 07:41 AM EST

1 John 5:14 (NIV)
"This is the confidence that we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we have asked of him."

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