Coffee, Theology, and Me

For some reason, I feel like writing tonight. It's not that I think I have anything special to say, it's just something I feel like doing. I had a great talk with a friend about coffee, theology, and my story. It's not often I get a chance to really tell someone everything that's going on in my life.

The conversation was really encouraging, and I needed to hear a lot of things that were said. It's very easy for me to fall into a trap of performance based acceptance, and forget about the grace of God. I loved the illustration that Steve showed me of a bike going down the road of grace, and the two ditches of license, and liberality you can fall into on the left or right. When I was a kid I used to love riding my bicycle. I could do tricks, like putting my legs on the handlebars, balancing the bars without my hands, and even balancing the weight of my body on the main bar. The reason I mention all this is that I think spiritually I've become so focused on staying on the road, that I've forgotten that I can have fun. The road is there to provide freedom, obviously with responsibilty, but it just really made sense to me.

Although God has been restoring me back to worship, and even volunteering to lead Bible discussions, I don't do so naively. I understand perfectly well that I have an enemy who is not happy with my decisions.

"For God has not given us the spirit of fear,
but of love, power, and a sound mind" (II Timothy 1:7)

Slowly, I am learning to depend on Christ. Normally, I would say that I am coming back to my old self, but that's not true. God has shown me my life in a totally different way and it requires me to change. I'm not perfect. There's no formula for righteousness. I will fall and make mistakes. Thank God for his "grace that is greater than all our sin." It's not a license, but it's not a burden either.

It's cooperating with a very generous friend,
It's knowing that I never have to put up my guard again,
The courage to speak out, instead of holding it in,
Letting tears out, holding love within,
It's everything I'm missing, when I don't confess my sin,
Much more then the blessing, I'm saying over and over again,
Love is too small a word to contain it, it's impossible to drain it,
It's grace.
It's grace.
It's grace.
It's grace.
And it's grace.

Hope you like my poem/lyrics. I just made it up.

Goodnight.