Bucket of Grace

You’ve got to earn it. The straight-A report card, the blue ribbon, the team trophy, the medal. You might even have to earn some negatives – not annoying your dad, not losing your birthday money, not forgetting to turn off the oven. All kinds of bad things can happen when you aren’t paying attention, but good things rarely come that way.

Whether trying to please ourselves, others, or God, we may or may not choose appropriate and effective ways to gain approval.

When it comes to pleasing God, we think the effort/reward system is the way to go. I have to please God or He will be mad at me. If I please Him, He will reward me. In fact, God says a lot of that in the Bible.

But He also makes it clear that we cannot succeed in a quest for perfection, that Jesus has succeeded in that quest, and that He wants to share His perfection with us. All that is required is our agreement about our sin, our acceptance of His forgiveness, our submission to Him. But that is everything. Our pride prevents.

He also makes it clear that He longs for us to lean on Him, to depend on Him, to ask Him for what we need and want. We don’t have to earn his care and concern.

Through the prophet Isaiah, He begged the rebellious people of Israel to turn to him with their needs:

“I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help.
    I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me.
I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’
    to a nation that did not call on my name.”       Is. 65:1 NLT

I see myself in the words of the prophet. I don’t want to need help. I want to be able to earn… Well, what is it I’m trying to earn….?

I see myself in the words of the poem:

Lord, I crawled across the barrenness to You

With an empty cup,

Uncertain in asking any small drop of refreshment.

If only I had known You better

I’d have come running with a bucket.

Nancy Spiegelberg ©

--Lynda Shenefield