Romans 11:6
“ But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”
After the hardest month of the race so far, I spent time with the Lord for the first time this month he gave me this verse.
Now my first thought was duh.. I know.. I receive your grace all the time. So what does this mean based on this month that I’ve had so far.
Before the month even started my computer broke, which is a very helpful aspect of the job that the Lord gave me on this race. In order to help serve this squad and the other treasurers on this squad I need my computer to access spreadsheets. Well, he broke that. So the start of the month was spent trying to fix it without even thinking about allowing grace into the situation. Grace for myself in not being able to do the job he has set before me.
Well it took the the entire week in La Paz for me to even slightly allow grace into the situation. I didn’t understand how the Lord could give me a job, then take away the one thing that helped me do that properly.
In that moment this was the first situation that popped into my head. Then the entire month did.
This month has been something I did not expect. The first four months were completed with ease in comparison to this month. One thing after another happened causing me to loose it on multiple occasions.
Not only did we start this month a whole week late because of visa problems. But we have spent 4 of our 14 days of ministry in a car…driving to another village… and another village. Where we would spend the afternoon trying to find the pastor, to then try and have some idea of what our lives would look like in that village for the next few days.
Well that isn’t as easy as you would think to find your host in each village. It’s not like they are your only contact in that village… Except that they are. They are the only one’s who know what those few days could even look like. So we would spend the day waiting to then get asked at 6:30 to speak at 8 for two hours. (Which is just an adventure in itself.)
So a lot of our time in those 10 days left of ministry not in a car are spent waiting around praying that your contact will show up or find out you are even in the village, to then sit down with you to give you some information.
Since the month is what it is, we haven’t done much. We have each maybe spoken twice to a village or two. We spent a few mornings in a church waiting for people to show up for a teaching but most of the time they didn’t. I knew coming into the race that months could look like this. I knew that there was always a possibility of having nothing and everything to do at the same time. So getting Romans 11:6 made sense.
No, his grace is not given based on how many lives we save, or how many homes we pray with on the race. His grace is not based on our works.
Part of me still doesn’t fully understand yet why he took me to this verse over and over again. But this verse isn’t just about this month. It’s not just about this race. He will give me grace forever, grace without the basis of works.
I do know that the Lord loves me, and I do know that he has a calling for me. But until I fully accept and believe that his grace is given to me no matter what, will take some work. It’s not about what job I have, or how great of a family I will have one day.
His grace is given to me because I am Sarah. His grace is given to me because I am His. That’s it. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. I don’t deserve his grace, but it is given to me anyways.
