West Point and the God of Abundant Grace

May 24, 2010

Maria Grace, Romans, Uncategorized , 6 Comments

“….God is able to do more than we can ask or imagine according to His power at work in us.”  Ephesians 3:20b

West Point Graduation – the culmination of a 47-month journey for 1002 young men & women in the graduating class of 2010.  A journey of prayer for many moms & dads.

Events I had no control over:

  • The weather!  It poured as we drove up from Virginia to New York on Tuesday, 18 May.  The events scheduled outdoors were the Superintendent’s Garden Reception,  a Thursday Parade,  Graduation Parade on Friday, followed by a family picnic down by the Hudson River, Graduation itself on Saturday in Michie Stadium, a picnic lunch celebration with Officer Christian Fellowship, and an evening barbecue picnic with 70 friends and family.  Then there were the many walks around the post, sight-seeing and trekking from parking lots 30-40 minutes from event locations to include walking in heels and ball gowns to the Grad Banquet.
  • Parking far away and being able to get to events on time.
  • When our group of 12 praying Moms-In-Touch would be able to meet and not cause a burden on the rest of the family members.
  • Family and friends showing up on time and getting through security.   Because President Obama was the speaker, inspections of persons, belongings and cars was intensified , therefore unpredictable.  Traffic backups were forecast.
  • A 11-month old baby!  Dear Chloe functions best with a morning nap and an afternoon nap.
  • Safety for family members flying in and driving in.
  • Harmony among the group.

How God met every need with abundant grace

  • Perfect weather – only the Supe’s garden reception got moved indoors.  We were able to walk around and push Chloe and enjoy the outdoor beauty of West Point.  During the 5 hours in the stadium for graduation, the sun was not too hot the first 3 or so hours.
  • We were able to park and get to events on time.
  • 9 of us moms were able to meet, hug, cry and pray in person.
  • Uncle Steve made it to the graduation banquet with plenty of time to spare. Joan & Jeff arrived on time to the hotel.  Fiancée Anne showed up at about the same time as her parents.  We drove onto post in plenty of time for graduation.
  • Wes’ sponsors, the Sturdivants, opened up their home to us for all 4 days so we could hang out, flop on their sofa and watch movies while Chloe napped upstairs in their guest room.  It was great to have a place just to relax and chill.  Grad week is INTENSE!
  • Chloe had at least one good nap a day and was able to adjust to her different schedule.  She was an amazingly happy baby.  Jeff, Joan and Anne took turns playing with her and walking her around.
  • Lots of laughter AND the good kind of tears.  Wonderful, memory-making times among the 10 of us.

Extra Grace that blessed us:

  • Wes’ grandmother in Seattle actually watched the graduation on C-SPAN and heard Wes’ name being called and watched him receive his diploma.
  • A foreign language awards ceremony where the personal care of loving professors was evident.  A slide show of baby & grown-up pictures of each of the 150 FL majors set to music was a special treat at the end.
  • The blessedness of a Spiritual Commissioning where Jesus Christ could be mentioned.
  • The personal and humorous anecdotal remarks that Col Rod Sturdivant made as he swore Wes in at his Army commissioning ceremony.
  • The warmth and care of two front-desk people at our hotel in Nanuet.
  • Seeing and hearing about the spiritual growth of Wes and his special small group of Christian brothers at the final event.
  • The layout of the hotel suites with kitchens so Chloe could be comfortable and we could have our creature comforts.
  • The joy of being with wonderfully-supportive Uncle Steve, Wes’ future in-laws- Jeff & Joan, Anne – Wes’ fiancée, and our beloved Graham and Shay with little Miss Chloe Isla Cochrane.
  • Restaurants that were accommodating to a  baby and provided high chairs that were perfect.
  • Anne being willing to drive Graham and family to the La Guardia airport which was MUCH easier than a taxi.
  • No traffic driving home.

What this experience taught me about how God answers prayer:

  • I am convinced that God delights to bless us with good things.  I take all these answers to prayer as evidence that the God of the universe does exist and does want us to cast ALL our cares on Him.  These ‘perfect’ 6 days have encouraged me to keep praying for those long-term prayer requests, the ones that seem to linger with no answers.  I believe that God showered us with all these blessings as a way to stress his teaching in Luke 18:1 –  Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

The best is yet to be!

April 15, 2010

Maria Ephesians, Grace, Romans Leave a comment

Eph 2 :5-7 (God) made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, (vs 7) in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Did you know that God has big plans for the universe AFTER this present age?  What exactly is this present age?  It’s the time between when Jesus was resurrected and when He comes back.  Upon His return to Earth, Jesus will inaugurate the period called the ‘coming ages’.  Looking at just verse 7 – the truths one can pull out of those words are astounding.  Here are some:

  • God loves to express/communicate/show off/display His grace to the universe
  • The best way He has conceived of to show this grace is to have His son, Jesus, die on the cross as a substitute for us – the Messiah undergoes the punishment we deserve and we receive His righteousness as a credit on our balance sheet
  • Someone/something in the future will be WOWed by this out-of-proportion displace of grace  (that pitiful creature was worth dying for?!!!)

Therefore, God has chosen certain totally undeserving humans to be the recipients of this grace.  I wonder how incomparable these riches are.  The implication is that we haven’t seen anything this kind of grace during our present age – (The old ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet!’)

Paul expresses the difference between our experiences now and in the future in his letter to the Romans when he writes in Chapter 8, “… but I consider our present suffering not worth comparing to the glory that is about to be revealed to us, in us and on us…”.  Even though he mentions the concept of glory, in my mind, glory and grace all blend together in something unimaginably wonderful.

The next time you are feeling the blahs of ordinary life, allow your thoughts to play and be encouraged by imagining your future.  In a paraphrase of Jonathan Edwards:  a) our suffering is being fashioned to benefit us    b) what is truly good in this life will remain   c) the best is yet to be.

What is our hope?

March 30, 2010

Maria Colossians, Hope, Romans Leave a comment

Hope is one of those equivocal words; it has more than one meaning.  One hopes that it doesn’t rain or that Mom doesn’t fix hamburger helper again or that one’s lottery ticket will bring in the jackpot.  None of these events are guaranteed or within one’s control.

But Christian hope is different and we need to be mindful of using that word around non-Christians.  Most people are likely to think of the weak, wishful thinking version of the word.  The Greek word for hope is ‘elpis’ and it carries with it the sense of assurance, something solidly guaranteed. You can take Christian hope to the bank.

So what is our assurance, our elpis?  Paul mentions in his letter to the Colossians that because of their hope, they were well-known for their unordinary and supernatural faith & love that was being talked about by many.  Colossians 1: 15 commends their deeds and praises them for “ – the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you”.  It is this hope that has motivated them to unselfishly reach out to others and share their material & spiritual resources.

My husband and I were thinking about how we would talk or act if we had a rich uncle who had promised us an inheritance.  In our scenario, this uncle had even put the large sum of money irrevocably in our names and we had the account # and our signatures were properly recorded at the bank.  We just couldn’t use the funds until he died.  But the inheritance was a fact, an asset waiting for us, an accounts receivable line entry.  We wouldn’t refer to this sure money as the inheritance that we ‘hope’ we get, but the inheritance that we ‘know’ we will get. For it would just be a matter of time.

Our treasure in heaven is even MORE valuable and MORE assured than our hypothetical uncle’s inheritance.  Nothing will change our status; no circumstance such as theft, or earthquake or bank error or computer failure will rob us of what is laid up for us.  What awaits us is a life of favor in the presence of Jesus where we will do what we like best: make much of God.  I know that it is hard to imagine what that will be like, but I am assured by God’s word that it is what we are made to do best.

So how should we act?  All I know is that if I REALLY believe what Jesus has said and what Paul expands upon, then I will be a lot more joyful and peaceful, no matter present circumstances.  As Paul asserts in Romans 8: 38-29, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.  Now I call that hope worth having!

Why can’t God just overlook or forgive our sins?

February 15, 2010

Maria Forgiveness, Romans, Sin , 3 Comments

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,  whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. Romans 3:21-25

Why couldn’t God just keep on passing over our sins, i.e.  FORGIVE our sins, without Jesus having to die? I was thinking about the nature of sin the other day during a Chapel talk at my school.  I suddenly realized that we have to accept that a property or feature of sin committed in God’s world is that it automatically incurs God’s wrath.  We can’t get away from that aspect.  It’s incontrovertible – not open to being challenged.  God set up the world and is the final authority on what everything means and what the rules of the ‘game’ are.  And since He says that sin has to be paid for – ultimately, then He can’t just forgive it.  The whole package of sin includes this wrath-incurring aspect.

When a friend fails to do what she says and lets you down, you experience at the very least the pain of disappointment.  Even if you forgive her, you still suffer.  Suffering can’t be separated from sin.  God’s active, avenging anger is the same way.  It is part of the nature of sin.

So when Paul tells us that God is righteous, it means that He acts consistently with the nature and consequences of sin.  He doesn’t go against the system He established – there is actual wrath to be dealt with.  We normally would absorb that wrath as a consequence of being the instigators of the sin.  But the amazing, outside of the box, reality is that Jesus in covenantal agreement with the other two members of the Trinity, absorbs that wrath in our place.  That is what ‘propitiation’ means.  God the Father accepts the work of his Son in absorbing the entire wrath due us for our sin.

It’s not that we are declared not guilty. We ARE guilty.  It’s that our debt or penalty to God has been paid for and we get to walk out of jail free.  It is incorrect to say that it is though we never sinned.  We DID sin.  Appropriate punishment was meted out and paid for/absorbed by Jesus.  And now we are welcomed back into society.

But our reentry into the community is far better than going back to ‘normal’.  Think about a man charged with being a sex offender who spends time in jail and then when his sentence has been completed, he is released.  The problem for him is that no one wants him living in the community near them.  He lives with shame the rest of his life.

Our crimes against God are FAR WORSE than the sex offender.  We rebelled against the very One who created us in the first place.   But God does not leave us to stew in our shame.  He invites us to a NEW normal.  We are actually given a place of honor, the opposite of shame.  God, the Father, invites us to share in the privileges of children of the King with full inheritance rights.

May we meditate on this unexpected grace.  May we revel in thoughts of the inheritance waiting for us.  May we frequently daydream about the full fellowship we will enjoy when we are face to face with the One we sinned against and the One who absorbed the punishment due us.

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