What Did I Do To Earn This?
What did I do to receive this gift?
Christmas had already passed; my birthday lay months away.
I lived at my current resident for five years, so it wasn’t a house warming gift.
I never asked for this gift. There was no “list” like at Christmas; how then did the gift giver know that I needed it?
What did I do to receive such a gift? Absolutely nothing! For the most precious gifts we receive we never “earn”; we can only receive because they are given in love. I often have found it difficult to accept the fact that I can receive something that I never earned, never asked for, but is a gift given because I found “favor” in the eyes of a gift giver. What did I do to find that favor? What happens if I discover that I did absolutely nothing; the gift was given to me just because the gift giver wanted to give it to me? What do I do with that?
Just receive it with gratitude, I guess!
I just received such a gift: I looked healthy, acted healthy, was walking my routine everyday life’s journey when something physically just didn’t seem right which took me down a different path than I had ever traveled before. Before I knew it a cardiologist proclaimed I had 98% blockage in a major artery, labeling me as a heart-attack waiting to happen, resulting in placing three stents in my heart. The procedure was without pain, without any discomfort, without any complication, perfect in performance and results. Seventy-two hours later I am keeping scoreclock at a Jr. High Girls Basketball game, living a life that now had energy and zip. What had I done to deserve this?
Absolutely nothing!
I had just experienced God’s “Grace”, His unmerited favor, not because who I was or anything I did. For some reason unbeknown to me, God extended His favor towards me, which I warmly received. Hindsight reveals that it had been extended for over six months. In June that still small voice of the Holy Spirit told me to slow down my lifestyle as I became a retiree after 40 years of being a public educator, quit multitasking, lay down and release the pressures that went with my former profession, learn to be quiet, listening for the small voice and being obedient to it. I did that, and it was instrumental in saving my life.
Now I realize I have been given two to three more decades of life! Why? I feel I have to “do” something now in gratitude, but that still small voice says, “No, just receive it, receive life, and live it in Me! You can do NOTHING but receive, accept, and live in it!”
Wow! Grace has nothing to do with work, allowing only gratitude as its reward! I haven’t earned it, can’t earn it, nor ever will earn it! Grace is a “free” gift of “favor” with NO STRINGS ATTACHED! I can’t pull God’s string!
God’s “Grace” is always about life, for He offers us eternal life of being in his presence if we accept it, often being healed if we accept it, giving us wisdom and understanding if we accept it, and extending favor if we accept it. He gives; we can only receive through “acceptance” which produces gratitude, praise, thanksgiving, honor, etc. which He calls worship. It is all about HIS Grace, HIS favor!
I thank God for the grace and favor He has extended to me with another couple of decades of life on earth and the promise of an eternal relationship with Him, and I would like to extend the challenge to your to see what Grace and Favor God has extended to you with the invitation to accept whatever the Holy Spirit reveals! Please leave comments here on what Grace, what Favor, what Gift God has given you.