Moody Monday's Musing

It’s Monday night. I am at a typical and favorite study spot, a café not too far from my house. There aren’t a lot near me so it’s kind of an awesome spot. I am listening to BB King& Eric Clapton and drinking a heath bar mocha, laughing at this Monday.

If you would’ve asked me twelve hours ago, I would have told you very confidently that I crushed this past week of grad school, and to boot, in time to celebrate America’s birthday all weekend long. The fourth was a great motivator for me to stay on task last week. But then I opened my college email to find a request for me to submit a paper in proper formatting. It stabbed me right in the gut and I cried on the spot. Then I frantically read the stupid APA manual and frustrated myself until it was time for me to pack up and hurry to my guitar lesson, which by the way are still happening.

In like two weeks, it will mark 1 entire year of me attending (mostly) weekly lessons. That is longer than I’ve ever committed to paying someone to teach me a hobby. I don’t regret it, even though I’m definitely not God’s gift to guitar playing (I am MAYBE proficient at best). My G scale still is “haltingly slow” as my teacher puts it. My bar chords still suck and I continue to hold my guitar mechanically incorrect to actually be any good at arpeggios. But if you would have asked me twelve hours ago, I would have only been able to speak of it’s positives like how I am inherently better at math now and how I relate to a larger group of people now, listen to music more intently or how I have a super healthy student-teacher relationship with an old guitar wizard that lectured me on my ignorance of Eric Clapton tonight.

It could be because I am listening to the Blues, or because I burnt my tongue on my stupidly yummy heath bar mocha or because I think “why learn APA anyways?”, but today all of a sudden feels like a kick to the gut. Disappointment is seemingly inescapable at this point in the night and I still need to pull it together to reformat a paper and knock out some reading and laundry.

But I believe it’s because this is the perfect opportunity for yesterday’s sermon to hit home a little closer, in the drudgery, in the areas where I feel (hmm.. felt?) like I’ve got a good grip. It’s a good time to reflect on yesterday’s truths that prepared my heart so very well to take communion.

“Anytime we believe or rely on our performance, it makes us radically insecure. It cuts away our assurance and leads us to pride or despair.”

 The pastor went on to say that two things happen when we “perform”:
1.     We ruin the joy of God’s gifts.
2.     We turn His free gift promise into a business contract.

The truth of it is that God is both trustworthy and true and all His gifts depend on Him (The Giver) not on me as the recipient. The love and GOOD NEWS we receive from Him is a promise that He has made to Himself and He alone will keep it, for His Name’s sake!

My heart melts at this news! I mean, THANK GOD that this is true of salvation! The comfort and hope of the gospel news being all about God is that this is true of every day of life, even in the seemingly insignificant things that become big deals to me! The things that I try to manipulate to show my strength and independence, the things I let overwhelm me or define, even in these areas where I expect myself to be put together—I am a sinner and grace is for sinners. Grace is for me.

The single greatest fact about me remains the same; God has grace on me. His gift IS for me and His business contract is with Himself alone.

The reality is that even on a bluesy Monday night when the struggle is ever real, I have nothing to prove, and everything to gain by believing that there is grace for this sinner in the completed work of Christ on the cross. There is grace for an attitude adjustment and its spoken with such sweetness.

Time to get back to reading and formatting and, eventually, laundry. J