So often we think... I will secure it! I will secure all things.. If only I am "good" enough or do enough "good deeds," I will somehow make my way clean or good with God. Lucky for us, we have grace. We can experience the party of the Prodigal and join in the party of God's grace. We don't need to bank our "security" on what we do. We don't need to enter the agonizing discourse of: "Is my relationship with God okay!?!?!" Wait: Now, "Is my relationship with God, okay?"
There is the constant tension as a Reformed Christian between giving, as we believe that we respond out of God's grace to serve and that we are called to serve, and the recognition that everything relates back to God's sovereignty and to grace.
This has been an incredibly palpable lesson in my life. With my personality, I have often struggled more from over-consciousness than from the lack of it... from having to establish good boundaries on my service than to somehow trying to muster up the motivation to do it.
When I came across Reformed Christianity and was told (Timothy Beach Verhey! ;) ) that as a Presbyterian, it is all about grace, suddenly I felt like the road under my feet made sense. I have often held within myself a huge motivation. It has been a precious and important thing. But, at the end of the day, I can be grateful to God for where I am and don't need to put a kind of unhelpful pressure on myself to ensure that everything turns out okay. I don't act mindlessly and I am fully in touch with "reality," and yet I recognize that life does not revolve around me; and it is incredibly freeing... and takes a day by day process to live into.
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