GRATITUDE OF GOD’S GRACE

As I read WHEN GOD INTERRUPTS, by Barnes he talks of “being abandoned by health. We often feel like God needs me. But alone with my Bible and my prayers we find out that God doesn’t need me. I need him, even to be alive today.  And I am grateful every day when he gives me that gift.” We have to abandon the certainty about tomorrow. These were some of the last words that Linda Pulver Cripps read. We need to abandon all illusions about knowing how long we would live.

She marked “None of us know when the end of life will come. Only when we abandon all illusions that count on tomorrow, will we ever have life, which can only be received with gratitude as God’s gift today.

Barnes says, “My family, my church, my health, so many incredible friends, the new day — there were no guarantees that I could have any of that.  They certainly did not come to be because I deserved them.  They have come only as the bounty of God’s grace.  If we are grateful, we cannot help but live our lives as a witness to God’s salvation. If we are not grateful, no matter hard we try, we can never have a Christian vocation.  That’s because Christians discover their mission only as a response to being in love with the grace of God.”