Grace - In Times of Mourning

Below is a quote I planned to use in a devotional this week.  I began preparing the devotional on Saturday, October 12, but my father passed away unexpectedly on October 16.  I find purpose in this quote appropriate to my father's passing, since it speaks of God's union with us being so intimate that He actually suffers with us.  As I was driving to my hometown to be with family and prepare for the funeral that is still a few days away, I listened to some meaningful podcasts on grace.  I didn't listen to those podcast messages with the intent of finding comfort; they were just what I was meant to hear.  God knew what I needed to hear.  The basic message in one of those podcasts was this:

God didn't just create humans, He did so knowing He would one day become what he created.  God created what He would ultimately become???  What foresight He has!  Think about it, God's union with man is so perfect, so eternal, that He lives not only in those who have true faith in Him, but He will also forevermore literally be one of us.  In the same way He is forever perfectly divine, He will always be perfectly human.

I admit that I have not spent much time thinking about this particular reality.  Christ in eternal human form is certainly not something you hear preached often.  But there it is and it's theologically sound and emotionally comforting.  Jesus is forever in His resurrected and glorified human body and, for me, it's just one more way in which He tells us, "I understand" and "I am with you (and one of you) forever".

In this time and for the days ahead, I need to stay in this place where I am aware of God's perfect love for me and to know that whatever the outcome in my life because of my father's passing and whatever changes to the dynamic of my family, my Heavenly Father has and will continue to provide for me.  I hope your relationship with Him will also be so real for you.

The immanent God in us becomes wounded with us, suffers, struggles, hopes, and creates with us, shares every drop of our anger and sadness and joy.  The reality of God is so intimate as to be experientially inseparable from our own hearts.  But that very same God is at once transcendent, the creating, sustaining, and redeeming Power over and above all things.  We should not be dismayed that God's being surpasses understanding, for it is precisely through this mystery that God incarnate can both lovingly share our condition and powerfully deliver us from it.  It is through this mystery that grace remains absolute, permanent, and victorious.*

I'm sure I'll write more about this in the future, but I wanted to include you in how the grace of God is comforting me in real time.  If your theology doesn't do the same, especially that you would experientially know His love, I pray your eyes would be opened to this type of relationship He calls us to daily, and not just in times of mourning.

If you want to see this devotional online and others I've written, click here:  Strengthened by Grace

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

*May, Gerald G. Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions. San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2005. Print.  p. 124.  The above quote may have been edited for clarity and understanding outside its context.