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“But by the grace of God I am what I am . . .”  – 1 Corinthians 15:10 

If you were to walk in the master bedroom of our home one of the first things you might notice is a pair of photos, one just above the other.  The larger of the two is a professionally photographed portrait of my beautiful bride in her wedding dress.  Beneath it is a snapshot by the wedding photographer of the two of us exiting the church just after our wedding ceremony, arm-in-arm looking at each other laughing.  It is my favorite of all our wedding pictures, maybe my favorite picture in the whole world.

Glancing at those pictures, as I often do, from almost fifty-two years ago causes me to reflect on the life we started together back then with no clue where we were headed, except we had made a commitment to take this wild journey together.  As with most couples, I suppose, our journey has been typical of what wedding vows try to prepare us for, for better or for worse, times of financial struggles and times of prosperity, times of sickness and times of health, yet to love and cherish always.

While we have experienced all those to-be-expected ups and downs from time to time, our life together has been extraordinary, in spite of occasional misfortunes or blunders we have made – mostly that I have made.  In more recent years as I reflect on our journey it has occurred to me how often those misfortunes and blunders have been set aright, not by our own actions, but by God’s grace.  Why, the mere fact that we ever met in the first place and fell in love, could that have been anything other than God’s grace?

Grace, I think, is something that happens when we least expect it, or not paying attention, and maybe don’t even realize it for what it is until years later.  Anne Lamott, in her best-selling book Traveling Mercies, describes it this way: “I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”  Frederick Buechner calls it “a crazy, Holy Grace . . . Crazy because whoever could have predicted it? . . . And holy because these moments of grace come ultimately from farther away than Oz and deeper down than doom, holy because they heal and hallow.”  The one thing I know for sure is that “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect,” which I am reminded of every time I glance at that picture on our bedroom wall.

“Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth . . .” – Genesis 1:26 

Once upon a time when I was a younger man I would have lunch with my business buddies and the conversation was inevitably about how to make more money.  Nowadays when I have lunch with my pals we seldom talk about how to make more money, instead our conversations center around how to make a difference.

What a change in priorities, at least it has been for me; for once I had been convinced that it was by making money that one became empowered, until I realized that as a human being created by God that I had already been empowered, indeed it is my birthright, to have dominion over all the earth.  How powerful is that?  But there’s catch, I must choose how to use the power bestowed on me.  With it I can do good or evil, love or hate, be self-giving or self-absorbed, make the world a better place or leave it worse off.  It’s up to me.

Perhaps more than anything what has transformed the lunch conversations my friends and I have is the realization that we only get one shot and it is up to us to decide what outcome we want with that one shot, to make the world better or leave it worse off.  How will we use the power we’ve been given?

In his own day Joshua challenged the people of Israel he had been leading to “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . .  But as for me and my household,” he declared, “we will serve the Lord.”  A time comes for all of us when we must choose and declare how and for whom we will use our God-given power.  What outcome do we most desire?  Will we use it for good or evil, love or hate, to be self-giving or self-absorbed?  Will we make the world a better place or leave it worse off?  Each of us as a child of God created in His own image has been empowered to rule over all the earth.  How will we use that power?

“Taste and see . . .” – Psalm 34:8 

For one of the meals when our family was gathered during the holidays Tee prepared a large casserole dish of lasagne, an easy one-dish meal that can feed a big crowd.  And besides, who doesn’t like lasagne?  It seems our five-year-old granddaughter, Eliana, didn’t, or didn’t think she did.  She wanted no part of it, not even a marcel, fearing it might contaminate her plate.  Eventually, though, after some coaxing from her parents, they convinced her to take a small bite.  And guess what, first she discovered that it was not poison, and that it was actually quite tasty.

Eliana’s resistance to trying something new is nothing out of the ordinary for small children, nor for adults for that matter.  Haven’t we all done it?  Her daddy, a life-long foodie, may be one of the few exceptions to that.  When he was about eight-years-old a large group of us were having dinner one evening in a restaurant where we were served raw oysters.  Now what little kid dares to try those slimy things?  But Marc did, and after being carefully instructed to swallow it quickly, what did he do?  He began to chew – and chew, and chew!  Napkins were being shoved toward his mouth from every adult at the table expecting the oyster, plus everything else he had eaten along with it, to spew from his mouth any second.  Much to our relief it was only the oyster he calmly spit back out.

I have no idea to this day whether my son has ever eaten another oyster, nor whether our youngest grandchild will grow up liking lasagne, but I give them both credit for trying something different.  For how else do we learn unless we taste and see?  “You should read the book I just read,” we suggest to one another, or “you should go see the movie I just saw.”  Otherwise, we are inadequate in explaining the content of the book, or what takes place in the movie.  Some things we must experience for ourselves.

John’s Gospel tells the story about Philip going to find his friend Nathanael.  “We have found the one Moses wrote about,” he tells him, “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”  “Nazareth!” Nathanael responded, “Can anything good come from there?”  “Come and see,” said Philip. . . “Lasagne!” my young granddaughter might well have said, “Can this stuff be worth eating?”  “Taste it and see,” her parents coaxed, just as the Psalmist had, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”  Indeed, taste and see, experience it for yourself.

“Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.” – Proverbs 30:8 

It never occurred to me as a kid that my maternal grandmother was poor, nor did she think of herself as poor for that matter.  Yet, to judge by her worldly possessions one would certainly think she was poor.  The home she lived in was but a small frame structure that she and my grandfather had managed to purchase years before; her entire wardrobe consisted of no more than three simple dresses; and over the course of her life she never drove an automobile.

Poor perhaps by the standards of Western society, but if you asked her she would be quick to say how blessed she was.  Her house may have been small, but it was a bright and happy place where my mother and her three siblings were raised, and where a drop-in guest might experience hospitality fit for high-tea at Buckingham Palace.  As to her wardrobe, usually given to her by my mother or aunt, it may have been sparce, but she was always elegant, her white hair permed and coiffed, and her simple dresses adorned with a colorful scarf and a piece or two of inexpensive jewelry.  And although she did not drive, thus depending on others to take her to church, the grocery store, or any place beyond walking distance, she was never without a ride wherever she needed to go.

Steve, my best friend since childhood, shared with me recently some sage advice his father had offered him years ago as he was heading out into the world.  “You need to have enough,” he said, “but you don’t need to have too much,” paraphrasing the prayer from Proverbs, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.” 

“For over 80 years researchers at Harvard have studied what makes for a good life,”  according to this weekend’s edition of the New York Times.  “They found one surefire, scientifically proven predictor of happiness: developing warmer relationships.”  And that, I believe may be at the heart of the message my friend Steve heard from his father, as well as the wisdom of the Proverb.  The message is not that we should strive to be neither poor nor rich, rather that our financial circumstances – rich, poor, or otherwise – not cause us to lose sight of what leads to a truly abundant life; that is, loving God and trusting Him as the provider of our daily needs, and loving others with caring and compassion. . . That is not unlike how my grandmother lived.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son . . .” – John 3:16 

We used to have this old cat in our family who, for lack of a better name, we called Puddy Tat, or Puddy for short (yes, like the cartoon cat who was forever stalking that clever little canary, Tweety Bird).  To say Puddy was not a nice kitty would be a gross understatement.  He was so infamous in our family, in fact, that even today when we have family gatherings Puddy stories still abound around the dinner table.  One such story occurred every year around this time when the Christmas tree was up and decorated, old Puddy would crouch behind it awaiting the opportunity to ambush the first unsuspecting soul to walk by when he would leap out from beneath the tree, wrap his front legs around the victim’s ankle and sink his teeth into him or her until he drew blood.

Each year around Christmastime the family would all agree that “Puddy would be getting nothing but a lump of coal in his stocking, that’s for sure!”  Yet, when Christmas day rolled around, undeserving as he was, Puddy’s stocking (yes, he had one) would be nonetheless stuffed with an assortment of kitty treats, cans of exotic cat food, and toys laced with catnip, as if he had done nothing naughty and everything nice.

Despicable and undeserving as he was, Puddy Tat got treated to as nice a Christmas as “the lord-mayor himself,” as Dicken’s Bob Cratchit would say.  Yet, the truth is that as I look back over my own life, at least in those moments when I am totally honest with myself, I am no different than old Puddy; for nothing – I mean nothing! – I have ever done is deserving of the bountiful blessings I have received in my life.  The family I was born into, my loving wife of fifty-one years, our children and grandchildren, friends, our lovely home, prosperous careers, health, and almost anything else I could name, it is all a gift of God’s grace.  Just like old Puddy’s Christmas stocking, it is a gift undeserved.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son . . .”  It was the greatest gift ever given to mankind, even though we don’t deserve it.  There is no way we can re-pay God, no gift is big enough, nor can we thank him enough.  The best we can do is show our gratitude through gifts to one another, and generosity toward others, deserved or not – just like God has done for us.  May God bless you all this Christmas season!

Abundant Living will return January 2023.