Giving Grace

If you remember, I told you I had lost my bible here, and I also told you how God always helps me find lost things.  Always.  So I thought it relevant to tell you that I found my Bible and to tell you want God was teaching me through it.

I remembered when I lost it and where I thought I left it.  I had gone to church to a study on grace.  It was the first meeting, and afterword, the kids and I sat in the lobby area and waited for Daniel to get out of his class.  We were on a bench and the kids were climbing and walking around the bench.  The benches are located in front of glass windows that meet at the floor.  I sat my bible beside me on the bench, and it was full of papers and a bookmark.  The bookmark was a gift given to me by my friend, Denise, when I went to play bunco one night.  It said, “Grace,” and then had a bible verse about grace on it, with a little bird and a bow.  I really liked it because it reminded me of the grace work God’s been doing in me.

When I would ask God where my Bible was located, a mental picture would come to me of my Bible fallen behind the bench with the pages ruffled up, like it fell with the spine up and pages down.  I can’t tell you how many times I went to look behind the bench, but to no avail.

When I asked God where my Bible was located before I wrote the post I wrote, I saw the bookmark in my mind.  I even considered writing a post about “Losing Grace,” but I don’t think you can lose grace, so I just let it go, trusting God to bring back my bible or that it would find someone else who needed it.  Mentally I felt like maybe someone received the bookmark message of grace who needed it.

On Sunday, we were not at church because we were traveling back from the beach, but a church friend sent me a message saying she had seen my bible in the preschool office.  I had looked there many times as well, but again, it was never there.  She told me where to find it.

Today I went to pick it up. This is what it looked like when I opened it:

The papers were obviously crumpled as if it sat just like the mental image God gave me as I would ask him where it was.

Everything had been removed from it save one thing.  I assumed that all the papers fell out and were thrown away, but I really don’t think someone would have thrown the bookmark away.  I looked for it on the counter, but it was not there.  I immediately felt in my spirit God say to me that I had not lost grace but that I was to give grace.  If someone found the bookmark and kept it, it was their gift, same as it had been to me.

So the one thing left in my Bible was this teeny tiny slip of paper which had my definition of grace I had shared on Facebook on it.  I shared that definition here.  As part of my definition is says this, “{grace} makes me aware of a deep need and dependence of someone else, namely God.  I can never give this grace back to Him or even to others except by Him.”  Whoa!

If we have grace, we are to give grace through the mighty power of God!

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This is a similar although unrelated story.  Two nights ago I could not sleep at all.  This happens to me sometimes, and I will write or pray.  Often I wake up to pray.  This was one such night that I just felt a deep need to pray.  After I prayed a long while, I also asked God to help me go to sleep, but it was slow in coming.  So then I asked him what he was singing over me.  Immediately in my mind came “Psalm 132.”  I didn’t sleep much until morning.  When morning came and I got up, the first thing I did was look at Psalm 132, which says this,

O Lord, remember David
and all the hardships he endured.

He swore an oath to the Lord
and made a vow to the Mighty One of Jacob:
“I will not enter my house
or go to my bed—
I will allow no sleep to my eyes,
    no slumber to my eyelids,
till I find a place for the Lord,
    a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”

We heard it in Ephrathah,
we came upon it in the fields of Jaar:
“Let us go to his dwelling place;
let us worship at his footstool —
arise, O Lord, and come to your resting place,
you and the ark of your might.
May your priests be clothed with righteousness;
may your saints sing for joy.”

For the sake of David your servant,
do not reject your anointed one.

The Lord swore an oath to David,
a sure oath that he will not revoke:
“One of your own descendants
I will place on your throne—
if your sons keep my covenant
and the statutes I teach them,
then their sons will sit
on your throne for ever and ever.”

For the Lord has chosen Zion,
he has desired it for his dwelling:
“This is my resting place for ever and ever;
here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it—
I will bless her with abundant provisions;
her poor will I satisfy with food.
I will clothe her priests with salvation,
and her saints will ever sing for joy.

“Here I will make a horn grow for David
and set up a lamp for my anointed one.
I will clothe his enemies with shame,
but the crown on his head will be resplendent.”