Welcome to the New Year! How has the first week of this New Year been going for you? I’m sure some of you “renewed” your gym memberships this week or vowed once again to go on that diet to lose the unwanted 15 pounds. Maybe you even made a promise to yourself to make this New Year – 2012 – really count for something.
I no longer make resolutions, because I have found that, by the second week of January, I’ve already failed and then I just give up on them. I know some of you call them goals instead of resolutions because that doesn’t sound so daunting! But no matter what you call them, for most of us, we start out great, but then things just begin to fall apart.
We skip the gym one day and the next thing you know we have skipped the gym for a whole month. We skip the diet one week and we throw in the towel the next week. The word FAILURE is swirling around our minds once again. I don’t know about you, but I hate to fail at anything! I’m a classic only child who has always been very competitive and achievement-oriented, starting at age three!! You see I won a tricycle race and got a beautiful little trophy. That was it for me! I was hooked! Winning was better than losing and failure was never a word in my vocabulary.
Yet, here I am on this first week of the New Year, already dreading my Saturday weigh-in at Weight Watchers. Yep, I blew it again this week! Ugh! I was thinking and praying about this last night and the word that came to me was "grace." Simple word, but it’s hard to give grace and it’s hard to receive grace sometimes too. What if Weight Watchers had a “grace” card for a week that you could come and NOT have to weigh in?
Over the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I not only caught up on my reading, but I also caught up on watching some movies on my DVD “must watch” list. One movie really touched my heart that I watched. It was called “The Grace Card.” I won’t give the plot away, since I hope you all go and watch this movie, but the whole premise of the movie is the giving and receiving of grace to others and from others. In the movie, one of the main characters uses and talks about a grace card, which he invites others to hand out to each other.
Here’s what the grace card said:
I promise to pray for you every day;
Ask your forgiveness and grant you the same;
and be your friend always.
What an awesome idea for all of us to do as well. What would happen if we did those 4 simple things? Grace would happen! Why not give your family, your friends, your coworkers and even those ERGs (Extra Grace Required people) in your life a “grace card” this week? Grace is indeed a free gift we can give to others, but we also need to “practice” being good receivers of grace too. Let’s make 2012 a truly “grace-filled” year for each and every one of us!
Here’s a wonderful song that reminds us about the power of God’s grace to us. It’s called “Grace Alone.”
To His Glory!
Pastor Carol
No comments:
Post a Comment