Nicodemus, listen to this eternal truth: You can perceive the kingdom realm of God, but you must first experience a rebirth. John 3:2-3
The Mystery of Grace – The Rebirth Series – Part 4
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5
In her book Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott wrote:
“I do not understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”
There’s tension between letting a new “thing” happen and doing the work of getting the new thing started. It takes both. In John’s memoir, he re-tells the story of Nicodemus – a wealthy and respected religious figure in the community – and his midnight journey to a secret meeting with Jesus (John 3).
Something new was happening in Nicodemus' heart that had the potential to change everything – his reputation, vocation, even personal security. To a point, he needed to let his heart run with it, but he also had to make plans and set things in motion. He had to follow the movement of change, and then get down and do the work. It’s not one or the other; it’s both.
The last few years, I haven’t set many resolutions or goals or made vision boards and lists to pin on my fridge. Up until a few years ago, I lived a life not unlike Nicodemus.
I was a Pastor's daughter, a Pastor myself. I had a set of rules and beliefs that I was handed and taught to maintain. At any cost. And the cost had started to add up for my heart, body and spirit.
I’ve written about it before, but we (husband and I) made some radical changes in our lives, quit our jobs, and started again. We went on somewhat of a deconstruction/reconstruction/faith/life/everything journey (writing a series on this very soon). For a few years there, I wasn’t sure what I wanted, what I should want, what I wanted to do, what I should do. Setting goals and dreaming up visions was confusing and disappointing.
I am prone to declare plans, only to fall through on the follow-up. And I had been that person that said they were doing something, but then changed everything, which meant that to some, I fell back on my word.
But this year is different. I’m learning to hold that tension of moving with Spirit and doing the work. A cliché way of saying it would be: following my heart with all the faith that I have and committing to the work along the way. Even the work of changing course.
Grace meets us where we are.
Where you are, right now, with whatever happened last year and the years prior; Whatever is about to be birthed into your life, or through your life; Grace is here for you at this moment. It doesn’t ask you why you’re not somewhere else. It doesn’t demand any more of you than you have right now to give.
But it knows that what you do have is enough to get you to the next right thing, and then to the next, and then to the next. Even if there are a few winding detours along the way.
Grace took Nicodemus from the height of the town and his religious position into the depths of night to be by Jesus side and ask the questions that were mid-wifing him into his own sacred season of re-birth.
Grace does not leave us where we are. Not because there’s anything inherently wrong with where we are right now, but because grace lives in the movement of life.
Grace always brings you to your “(re)birth.”
Go to How Much God Loved the World – The Rebirth Series – Part 5
Written by Liz Milani
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