ApprehendingGrace.com

Sometimes God arranges what we’re reading to have doubled impact.

Yesterday I read in Genesis about Noah and the flood.

Today I read the lineage of Jesus in Luke.

The last line “Adam was the son of God” always strikes me. Wow! To be a son of God! I’m a daughter of Pat Parks and Leona Vinck. I have a grandmother who loved the Lord, but little other spiritual heritage that I’m aware of. Adam was the son of God.

The second thing I notice is that Noah is in the lineage of Jesus. Of course He is, because only Noah, Mrs. Noah, and their 3 sons and 3 daughter-in-laws were saved from the flood. Wait a minute! That means I’m related to Noah! And if I’m related to Noah, then I am also related to Adam…and I am therefore a daughter of God.

I know this is nothing new. I’ve known that I’m related to Noah. I also know that I am a true daughter of God only because I choose to follow Him, not because I was born into His family. But today there seems to be something special about that lineage, that heritage. Truly, I have God’s DNA (or I suppose more specifically the DNA that God put into Adam) in me.

Again, this is nothing new, but it struck me anew…and I am awed at the plan that God put into motion, even from creation. What an awesome God we serve!

I have also been studying Ephesians 2:1-9. I was dead in my sins, but God (BUT GOD!), who is rich in mercy and because of His great love for me, has raised me up with Jesus and seated me with Him in heavenly places! Wow! That’s what a Father can do! That’s what a Savior can do!

Praise God for His immeasurable riches of grace. What a match for His immeasurable power.

Hi Folks,

After getting my feet wet on with a Yahoo 360° blog, I felt ready to move to something else. Yahoo provides a great service, but it seems more “family news” oriented than I want this blog to be.

The purpose of my blog is to encourage and edify the Body of Christ as I grow in Christ. So this is part journal, part teaching, part sharing my passion for Christ. With the personal desire that (1) you, the reader are blessed and (2) I, the writer, grow in Christ as I write and prepare to write regularly.

But first, I needed a name for the blog. Sandy’s Blog sounded too egotistical to me. I pretty much assume you don’t really care what I have to say. Hopefully, you care what the Holy Spirit might say through me. So Sandy’s Blog was out.

The Evolution of a Name
(Yes, I believe in evolution…the kind that’s otherwise know as progressive revelation — or hearing from God progressively instead of having Him dump the whole answer in your lap (or mind or spirit) all at once.) One of my favorite verses is Jonah 2:8 — “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” It might sound like a negative verse to you, but it motivates me not to cling to those idols because I want all the grace God has for me.

So I began thinking…what’s the opposite of the word “forfeit?” And the King James version (yes, I’m old enough to have done most of my Scripture memorization in KJV) of Philippians 3:12 came to mind: Paul wants to apprehend that for which Christ apprended him.

The light bulb went off. I don’t want to forfeit grace, I want to apprehend it. Newer translations of the Bible say “take hold.” I don’t want to give up grace God has for me without a fight, I want to take hold of it.

So I looked up the word in Strong’s Greek Dictionary. And I found that the word in Philippians that is translated “apprehend” or “take hold of” was a key word in one of the first sermons I preached.

Well, that’s enough connections for me. “Apprehending Grace” it is.

I hope you’ll visit often and add your comments so that we can apprehend God’s grace together.

Grace & peace,
Sandy

Mondays are my busy days. I have a graduate class on Monday nights and have to leave my home office by 3pm to make it on time. I prefer to leave at 2:30. I don’t get back home until nearly midnight. Then I have a 7am business meeting every Tuesday. So before I leave at 3pm I have to have everything I need for my Tuesday morning in a neat pile or briefcase because there’s not a lot of time between midnight Monday and 7am Tuesday. When I look at it in print, that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it just seems to cramp my time all day on Monday. If anything out of the ordinary comes up (and you know it always does) I feel unable to accomplish all that I “need” to get done before leaving for class.

So this (Monday) morning, I was praying through my daily prayer list (yes, I’m a list person). The list was interrupted by remembering something I needed to do. I decided that stopping the prayer to accomplish the task was more beneficial to my prayer time than trying to remember it while praying or adding it to my list of things to do. I did the task and went back to my prayer time…At which point I almost immediately needed to go to the bathroom. “Nothing like an uninterrupted prayer time,” I thought. (Too much information, you’re probably thinking!)

Can you feel the frustration beginning to set in? Now on any other morning, I wouldn’t be frustrated, it’s just that I know I’m up against this hard deadline of leaving by 3pm. Well, as I walked upstairs to the bathroom, I continued to pray. Somewhere between my desk and the bathroom God whispered in my ear…”Do you think I’ve given you more to do today than I’ve given you time to do it?”

And it hit me. I can approach today with the knowledge that I have a lot to do and seemingly little time to do it, or I can approach the day confident that God has given me all the resources I need to accomplish those things He’s called me to. There’s not really anything on my list today that doesn’t support something He’s called me to. I’m confident of that. So why don’t I just drop my own expectations and the expectations of others and choose to be confident that the God who is sovereign over all things knows what He’s doing and will enable me to accomplish what needs to get done today? I’m choosing that approach today. I’ll probably need to be reminded of it tomorrow and next Monday, but it’s the way I want to live. Trusting that God has my life in control and not stressing about my schedule and my to-do list.

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”
      2 Corinthians 9:8

OK, so I’m stealing the title from my pastor’s sermon yesterday. But he stole it from Scripture, so I think that’s OK!

I’m not a big fan of the Message Bible. It’s usually a little too hokey for me. But read this passage:

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.??Matthew 11:28-30 (emphasis mine)

Tonight on “Dancing with the Stars,” several couples will dance the Viennese Waltz. It’s a beautiful dance with graceful swirls amidst the rise and fall of the dance. It appears effortless. It flows with the rhythm of the music.

“Learn the unforced rhythms of grace” Jesus tells us. Here’s the Sandy Hovatter amplified version: “Learn to dance with me to the music I’m playing as the backdrop for your life. The music will have it’s own tune, unique to your life, created especially for you with crescendos and decrescendos, measures to be lived quite softely and others to be lived with great gusto. I’m writing it uniquely for you, note by note, to lead you into and through the purposes I have for your life.”

Wow!

Lessons from Ballroom Dancing
Phil and I have taken ballroom dance lessons periodically over the past ten years. We love it, but we’re really not very good at it. In all these years, we’ve barely progressed beyond beginner. But even a beginner learns a few things:

1) Only one person can lead! When two people lead you are constantly fighting one another and you’re likely to end up on the floor as you lead each other in opposite directions.

2) If the wrong person leads, the dance doesn’t flow properly. It just looks (and feels) wrong.

3) Find someone who knows more than you do and follow them.

4) Finding and following the flow and rhythm of the music covers a multitude of wrong steps.

5) Quit stressing about getting it perfect — you’ll get better each time, so enjoy the process and laugh at your mistakes. (Every teacher we’ve had has told us that we have to do every step a thousand times to really learn it — and they all suggest practicing the steps as we walk down the street! People who love to dance don’t seem to care if others laugh at them.)

I doubt that you need me to make the spiritual applications here, but how can I resist?

• When following Jesus, only one person can lead — the Lord! When I take the lead, falling is never far behind. At the very least, the flow of my dance (i.e., my life) disintegrates rapidly.

• I’ve always found that being around people who love God more than I do greatly enhances my love for God. I try to find these people and hang around with them.

• Walking in grace covers a multitude of mis-steps. Keeping my connection with the Lord strong allows me to flow in His rhythm, so even when I miss His lead, I don’t get far before sensing that He’s changed directions.

• A question I try to ask often is “In the light of eternity, how important is it?” Almost all the time, the answer is “not very.” So let it go. Don’t get angry because your husband is doing that thing that annoys you…again. Don’t be discouraged because you’re not the person you want to be yet. Keep practicing. You’ll get the steps down. Don’t give up. Laugh at your mistakes (not at your sin, at your mistakes, there’s a difference) and try it again.

I’m ready to treat life as a wonderful dance between my Savior and me. Who knows, it might end up looking a whole lot like a Viennese waltz.

An afterthought: When Phil and I are dancing, I am most likely to “steal” the lead when I become bored — when we’re not doing anything interesting. If I were to examine my life, I bet I’d find the same to be true of the times I’ve “stolen” the lead from Christ. As if I know what’s best for me, right? Wrong!

A small group of us are studying the book of Philippians. Last night we did chapter 1. So much good stuff, I had to blog a little about it. Today I’ll share briefly about Paul’s greeting. Tomorrow (or at least some day soon), I’ll share about “abounding in love.”

Paul’s greeting in the letter is twofold — a salutation and a blessing. The blessing is “grace and peace to you.” Pretty simple. But we looked at the words.

Grace — The word for grace is “charis” which means not just the unmerited favor we receive from God, but also it’s “reflection in [our] life” according to Strong’s Greek Dictionary. I don’t often think of that when I think of grace. When I pray “grace,” I’m not just praying for God’s favor to be shown to someone (or myself), I’m also praying for the reflection of that grace — the outward expression of it in our lives. That’s pretty cool! It’s like the prayer is doing double-duty or has double power. I’m not sure why, but this has me pretty jazzed.

Peace — Not the absence of conflict, but a restoration to oneness, quietness and rest. That sounds a whole lot more like a spiritual thing to me than a relational thing. My spirit so often needs to be restored to oneness with God, to experience quietness and rest in the midst of a crazy world. I’m reminded of the spiritual formation “exercises” or practices that I’ve largely allowed to fall by the wayside.

Paul blessed the Philippians with grace and peace at a time when they were experiencing persecution — being falsely accused, arrested and thrown in prison. He was saying “may your soul be at rest with the Father and your life be a reflection of His grace in your life.” Wow! all that in just 3 words — “grace and peace.”

Grace and peace, friends.