A Grace Awakening

Today's page reads:

“Behold, O My people, I will open your graves...” (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has ever given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He will only do this when His Spirit is at work in you), then you know that in reality there is no criminal half as bad as you yourself could be without His grace. My “grave” has been opened by God and “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Romans 7:18). God’s Spirit continually reveals to His children what human nature is like apart from His grace.

My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers.


Sometime in the past few months I was brought to a point where I had to see grace anew. Brought to a place where I could see all that is downtrodden and flawed within me, brought to a painfully humbling realisation that I'm not as good a person as I thought I was.
I didn't like it. I didn't like feeling, knowing, that after all is whittled down, all that is left are echoes that I am not good enough. I'm all wrong. And I've never been on amiable terms with this phrase. I dodge it like some people dodge paying taxes.
Not good enough. I slip up at the slightest annoyance, blurt out things that should've been swallowed in. I can't even keep commandment #4, let alone the other six. Yes, I know I am not good enough. The realisation hangs on my shoulder like a schoolbag laden with unnecessary textbooks.

And everyday in the seminary for the past 3 months, as we learn more about God, the more we also realise our weaknesses. In His light, all is uncovered, nothing can be hidden. Discomfort. Glaring inadequacies.

But only because of an equally inadequate (or diluted) understanding of grace.

One day, one of our lecturers looked at us (the way he would when he wanted to drive a point deep into our head) and said, "...we are but sinners saved by grace."No matter who we are - preachers, cleaners or convicts.

We are like the dry bones in Ezekiel. But God doesn't remind us of the bones that we really are because He wants us to feel perpetually hopeless and useless, but to make us see grace anew. Yes, we are but dusty, broken bones, but when these bones dance, we know that it is only, and only, because of Him and Him alone.

That is grace. As bones, I can never jump up and dance, rattle and shake on my own. Dry bones don't deserve to do the boogie (bones are meant to be still, lifeless and very dead) but by His grace (read: undeserved favour) He makes them come alive, breathing. Dry bones can't do the boogie either, but by His grace (read: divine enablement) these bones can and will dance and dance and dance.

In my flaws and inadequacies I see the great space in my life for the grace of God to fill. In my weaknesses I see and say that yes, I need the grace of God every single day. In my not good enough, there is a place for God to do something, because if I think I'm good enough, I'm enough and there'll be no room left for God to even nestle in an inch. And at the end of it I'll know that it's not me at all, but really all God.

And this is but the surface of the deep waters of this thing we know as His amazing grace.