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"Behold the face of Jesus,
to live the pace of Jesus,
to extend the grace of Jesus."
~ Chuck Miller
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Face, Pace,
Grace
We sometimes want to be like
Christ but not with Christ. We prefer to drive hard rather
than stroll. And we like to associate with winners not losers.
We sincerely claim Christ as
Lord, but essentially ask Him to join our endeavors. We'd like a senior
partner for our ventures; a guide to explain things along the path that
we choose; and a benefactor to underwrite our dreams.
This past Monday, my spiritual
director Chuck Miller suggested a recalibration.
Behold the
face of Jesus ...
The starting point of all
spiritual formation is "the face of Jesus." After all, we
don't follow His followers. We follow Him.
Our attentiveness to Christ
provides the foundation for abundant life. And to the extent that we
"behold" our To Do list or our computer monitors or our
routines before we "behold" Him, we live off-balance,
teetering and wobbling within ourselves.
... to live
the pace of Jesus ...
The gospels don't describe
Jesus jogging around Galilee. He may have been fitness conscious but
the disciples didn't do training runs with Him. Rather, they walked.
They sat. They talked. They watched. They listened. They paid
attention. They remained generally unhurried.
It's strategic that
the apostle Paul would later write of walking, not running, by the
Spirit (Galatians 5:16).
Eugene Peterson's
confrontational words still ring true: "The word busy is the
symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but
defection. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront."
... to extend
the grace of Jesus.
"Extending grace"
generally fails to show up on our list of goals for each day.
We might have plans like
"work, shop, drop the kids to school, have lunch with so-and-so,
do the banking, etc." But how many of us itemize "extend
grace"?
It tends to be incidental
not intentional. No wonder. Apart from beholding the face of Jesus and
living the pace of Jesus, we'll struggle to extend the grace of Jesus
because we are either too busy or too self-absorbed.
How's your alignment today.
Perhaps you could take two minutes right now to behold His face, adjust
your pace, and be open to grace.
In HOPE –
David
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