God’s plan from the startFor this world and your heart Has been to show His glory and His grace
Those words from Steven Curtis Chapman sung over me from the radio. Driving to church in the rainy November autumn I saw a leaf in front of me, falling slowing, twisting on its way down. I was overcome with emotion.
It’s a bit strange, I admit, but I couldn’t help but feel the glory and grace of God in that moment. There are times in our lives when the reality of God breaks through the mundane. It happens in the little moments. We expect him to be there with us in the big moments, that’s why his presence in the small moments, the ordinary moments, is so surprising. It turns out God really cares about us at all times. In the same way I pay attention to how my son’s eyes bulge a bit at seeing the horses on the way to church, my Father sees, and is in, the awe I have over that falling leaf.
It was a fleeting moment, but it was a moment with God. As I saw that leaf twirling slowly toward the ground, I realized how much I felt it. There are times in our lives when we feel like we’re slowing twirling towards the ground. Nothing big and bad has happened, but the feeling is just there. We feel like failures, like things are falling apart, like sin will win in the end. We’re falling, and it’s going slowly, and we’re twirling around, disoriented and lost. We perceive that below us is the hard, cold ground and, most likely, we’ll be hit by a car once we get down there.
But God promises something better for his children. He promises his presence in the messiness of our ordinary lives. In moments of our own failure God hasn’t failed. In moments of our own disorientation and pain God is reorienting and healing. We may feel as if we are falling toward the hardness of life, even death, but in Christ we are only falling to his softness of grace. He will be there, all the way down, and even more so when he finally hit the bottom. We won’t be run over, we will be restored, because he’s prepared for us, even orchestrated it all on our behalf.
"And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you." (1 Peter 5:10)
Everything we fear will in the end only be cause for rejoicing in the grace of God for us. It’s his plan from the start, for this world and your heart. He’s going to show you his glory and his grace.