Blog

Observation

What empowers life? We all know that life is not a passive engagement, it comes at us continually, and often as a raging river. We cannot sidestep life even with our best attempts, we just always find it waiting at the next turn and asking and demanding responses to its questions. So how do we do this life? Where do we find the power, wisdom, peace, security, love, forgiveness, mercy, and identity that life demands from all of us?

Paul gives us his answer – “Live your life empowered by God’s free-flowing grace.” We either find the power within, or we look to something higher. God gives himself freely, without coercion, without demands of worthiness, without consideration of any type, to any who would lean into his presence for strength and intimate knowing. I think most people, and all religions, are on the same journey – to understand the mystery of God and how to share and do life in his presence. We know at a personal, intimate level that we cannot do this life alone. We don’t have what it takes to face all of life’s confrontations, complexities, and demands.

It’s not intellectual knowing that God offers us as our strength, it’s union with him. Religion turns God into doctrine and dogma, that it creates, using their personal interpretations of what they believe God says and who he is. But God hates religion that keeps people from intimacy. For his strength is not in intellectual wisdom but in personal presence. I don’t go to what man has to say when confronted by life, I go to the table of communion and union and receive intimate revelation that shapes and strengthens me in my responses. A personal revelation and experience of God will shape me for life, where formed intellectual beliefs change with the tides of time and circumstances. We live our revelation of him, for here is true strength.

Application

I will not face life in all its forms and questions in my weakness when I am invited to a posture and position of strength. I will live in “God’s free-flowing grace…and union with him.” This will be my true strength for living.

Response

Thank you for your grace, and your empowering presence as my strength for life. I know so clearly that I cannot do this life on my own, my wisdom, my strength, and my capacities, all fall so short of living and creating the life I desire. I need something greater than me. Thankfully you give me yourself. I love this life lived freely in your grace, strength and presence. What a life!

Meditation

Meditate – live your life empowered by God’s free-flowing grace.

Consider:
How and where am I facing life in my own strength?
Do I have a rhythm of union, of presence, of personal revelation, with my God?