20121221

Connecting to Christ: The Explanation for Every Good Outcome
 
Again this Christmas I won’t be able to write a letter reporting how wonderfully blessed I have been with possessions, experiences, and accomplishments. I can only report that I have health, opportunity of meaningful service to others, deep contentment in my heart, no guilt, no fear, and no unfulfilled goals. Mostly, I have ever-increasing consciousness of God’s presence in my heart to enable my life – that is, I have his love, joy, peace (in me for me), his longsuffering, gentleness, and goodness (in me for others), and his meekness, faith, and temperance (in me for him – his provisions).

Whatever may be said about my state, God is the explanation for it all, not because I was chosen for it, but because 23 years ago I began learning about his provisions of grace which produce good outcomes in all of us who take time daily to include them in our lives and against which no brokenness in all creation can prevail, and also about the importance of connecting to the resources (beginning with Christ) through which those provisions flow into our lives to support us for understanding the message of grace in all its truth (“Christ in you the hope of health and happiness.” –Colossians 1:27).

“I thank God that, although you were once in bondage to your brokenness, you wholeheartedly embraced the form of teaching God called you to, and now you have been set free and have become useful in service to others.” - Romans 6:17-18 (paraphrased).

DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 12L21