Thursday, May 31, 2007

astounded

An excerpt from Gary Thomas' Sacred Influence:

Elyse Fitzpatrick, a counselor, once told her small group about how God had moved her from a legalistic, works-oriented faith to a "grace-filled, peaceful existence with my merciful heavenly Father."

"The pressure is off me," she told them. "Don't get me wrong; it's not that I'm not pursuing holiness. It's just that I know that my Father will get me where He wants me to be and that even my failures serve, in some way, to glorify Him. My relationship with God is growing to be all about His grace, His mercy, His power."

Then Elyse's friend "astounded" her by responding, "That must be such a blessing for your husband, Elyse. To be walking in that kind of grace must enable you to be so patient and so grace-filled with Phil. To know that God is working in him just as He's working in you must make your marriage so sweet and your husband so pleased. It must be great for hiim to know that the pressure is off for him too."

The reason this friend "astounded" Elyse is because Elyse rarely made the connection her friend made. "I scarcely ever extended to Phil the grace I enjoyed with the Lord. Instead, I was frequently more like the man in Jesus' parable, who after he was forgiven a great debt, went out and beat his fellow slave because he owed him some paltry sum."

3 comments:

Devil's Son said...

Hi,
i'm from the other side of the world(Malaysia)...
i saw your wedding site....
such a romantic and lovely relationship~~~

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N !

_______________________________
Wired Right Brain

Laura said...

Is that Portugese? Random.

Is there a systemic blog-access issue in Deutschland, 'stine? I'm posting WAY more than you, which heretofore has proven impossible.

ckjolly said...

cassey, wants to know if you're coming to the wedding ...

notice, i don't want to know ... cassey does ... i already asked you so for me to ask again would be nagging and that would be a nasty habit to start.