As I am typing this I am listening to “Oh The Deep Deep Love of Jesus” Audrey Assad, while fireworks are lighting up the night sky in my backyard.  Blessed Lord, I thank you for this sweet enjoyment of telling of Your Glory.

My life is The Lord’s and growing up I believe that Truth was planted in me, however it was buried deep, covered up, never able to dwell on His Amazing Love, I never gave thought, yet I knew. I knew Someone had to be keeping my life, I knew I was protected but those things did not compel me to live life differently.

I knew prayers were covering me, I knew I was a Christian because I went to church and my family said we were Christians. So it was on those terms I thought I knew, or rather presumed I was good. In my “goodness” I seemed very indestructible and with a pompous understanding of God’s Grace I went about my life.

God’s Revelation and His intervention was distant and seemed far removed or even absent.

This I did not have: “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for The Salvation of The Lord. It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent since He has laid it on him.” Lamentations 3:25-28

My sinfulness and my weaknesses eluded me because I hid them so well that even I could not find them.

Then that day came, it was a day like any other day, a day of selfishness and foolishness, a day I will always remember, God in all His glory, the power of His Spirit came on me like a flood, my encounter with The Holy was so vivid and real… I felt the weight of my shame for the first time in my life. In a blink I saw the wrath of God poured out for me onto my Savior and He was sitting there Loving me still.

For all those 32 years, I had unintentionally presumed upon grace. I knew He was God and I knew I was watched over…I just assumed that because I was raised a Christian that I was blessed, and actually I was right because that day did come when He blessed, during the struggle as the weight of that blessing was felt by me. My assumptions became assurances. It was the day I received the gift of Salvation, the gift of New Life, Eternal Life, the Gift of God. He did not leave me the same…because I was humbled for the 1st time in my life, knowing that “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some understand slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

Responding in humility I acknowledged that I shouldn’t have been allowed to live. I was given eyes to see the magnificence and the depth of God’s grace and unrelenting mercy and my only response was Utmost Gratitude for His Highest. It is by His terms we are healed. We all must wrestle with God by the grace of God before we can truly see and be assured of the depth of God’s Love for us. Oh His Blessed Assurance!

This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 1 John 3:19-20   When our hearts condemn us, we must rest on the basis of assurance!

Have you wrestled or are you still assuming grace?

“…..I will not let You go unless you bless me!  Gen 32:26b

Lord thank you for allowing us to wrestle with You here in this home …. a privilege it is to disciple the kids in Your Word and Truth, upsetting and difficult as it has been through the storms of life, Gary’s Cancer, Grant’s daily raging skin condition, You have blessed us greatly with The Fullness of God, The Power of God, Your Spiritual Blessing greater than we would have ever asked, thought, or imagined! “and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him Who is able to do infinitely more than all we ask or imagine, according to His Power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.…” Ephesians 3:19-21

Lord, You Promise Your children Blessed Assurance in this life. Help us to seek You diligently so that we would Know of Your Amazing Grace, not just assume as Jacob/Israel did before He wrestled.

Dwelling Reference: Genesis 32:22-32