Alan Fadling: Notes from my Unhurried Journey

(Continuing part one of these reflections)

I long for a church community where there is a culture of grace–where the ongoing need of grace would be the assumption, rather than the exception. In such a culture, the pressure to keep up appearances and look good to others would diminish. We would not be embarrassed to admit our specific need of grace because this would be an acknowledged and shared reality in all of our lives.

What good news I find in the two words “He lifts”! I’m grateful that God sees the needy and doesn’t despise or turn away from them. Instead, He reaches to them and lifts them. My realized needs can cause me to feel downcast or discouraged. God raises me up from lowly places and brings me to higher places.

The lowly places sometimes feel like “the ash heap.” Job was on the ash heap as a place of deep mourning, grieving and pain. The ash heap is the place where things come to their worst. An ash heap is a place of death—the fire has died, the logs have all burned away and all that is left is the waste and debris. Sitting there among the ashes, I can feel just as used up and burnt-out. Among the ashes may be dead dreams, dead hopes, and perhaps even dead works. The word of hope to me is that God is the One who takes us from ash heaps and seats us on thrones. What an unlikely, but God-honoring progression. Such honor and authority is much more obviously the work of God, rather than the outcome of my striving, conniving or manipulating. God raises the dead to places of real life. What grace!