Saving Grace

"It is not necessary for us when we pray to work ourselves up to a state of spirituality which we feel that we lack. Nor do we need to put forth any effort to make what little faith we have seem as great as possible. . . . We need to do but one thing: tell God about our condition, about our faith, our solicitude, and our worldly and prayer-weary heart; and then pray in the name of Jesus." -O. Hallesby

A friend of mine posted this quote and video on facebook and I almost skipped over it, but when I read it, I felt like there was so much truth in it.  Something that's hard for me is not always 'feeling' God or praying and not feeling like something changed or getting pictures or something like that.  That tends to make me feel like I'm not being 'spiritual' enough or praying enough which makes me criticize myself and that gets me nowhere.  

I feel like God's been speaking to my heart lately about just knowing who He is and acting out of that knowledge and understanding.  It doesn't matter if I feel like God is with me and that breeze just confirmed it and the person next to me just gave me a sweeet word and all this stuff, I can simply walk in the knowledge of who He is and act out of that.  Granted, I do need to have that relationship and connection with Him and pray regularly, but if I don't 'feel' Him it doesn't mean He's not there.  

There's a simplicity to having faith like a child; acting out of who you know God to be and always walking in that truth.  Not questioning the timing or the place or what if nothing happens?! Simply believing Him to be who He says He is and who I've seen Him to be in my life and living out of that truth.  I think there's something powerful in simple, big faith.  Even if it's coming to God and saying 'I'm feeling crappy and I don't feel like I've spent enough time with You and I just don't know what to do.'  It's just the act of coming before Him all the time, not just when things are good or when things are bad, or when you feel like something special could happen, or not coming before Him because you definitely messed up real big this time.  His love conquers all.  There is nothing His grace can't cover as long as you bring it before Him to give up.  He doesn't want us toting around our concerns and problems and screw-ups and mistakes.  He wants us to give them to Him so He can cover us with grace and pin our stuff to the cross with Jesus. Then we're done with all that.  Those sins, problems, mistakes are no longer ours to deal with; they've been dealt with and Jesus already won. Grace is so beautiful but I feel like it's so unknown even among christians.  We don't understand enough of what God's grace means for us and our lives and those around us.

If we did understand, I think our lives would look a lot different.