Providential Grace

I woke up this morning at 10:00 am. On Sunday mornings, I normally wake up at 8:00 am. Are you starting to see the problem? It takes me a minimum of 30 min to get ready, 30 min to drive to church, and I like to be early. Problem here: Church starts at 9:30. I missed Easter morning service for the first time in my life. I rarely miss any church function if I don't have to, especially Sunday mornings, but I overslept and had no control over the situation. The exciting part is how the Lord used this event to remind me of an important principle of Christianity.

The Christian life is not about going to Sunday service every week or even once in a while. The irony of this morning is, the week I didn't go, thousands of people, like a religious homage, made their bi-annual trip to many mainstream churches around the nation. What makes them think that their ritualistic appearance is giving them "a check" in God's book? It was an important reminder to me that I can't be upset about missing a week at church - 1) because I had no control over the situation and 2) because a weekly attendance is only a good thing when paired with a heart desiring to praise and worship God for who He is. Luckily, I do see the Lord's work in my life to grow me towards a more worshipful and reverent attitude, but this experience was a check on my tendency toward legalism. It also immediately led me to pray for the motives of mainstream churches, the salvation of luke-warm "Christians," and my desires to be for the glory of God.

Also, as a side note, the Lord reminded me that no matter how much I plan to do what I say I will do, His will still prevails. Saturday night, while having a short phone conversation with Thomas, he said, "We'll see you tomorrow morning, Lord-willing. " This is a natural and common response that I hear daily from fellow believers. I, myself, use it quite frequently, but on this occasion, I stopped and had a brief daydream about the etymology and purpose of these words. I know that the James 4 specifically gives us the direction to make plans with the contingency that the Lord's will may trump these plans, but I wondered why it was said just like that "if the Lord wills" or "Lord willing" it just seems a little off from modern day language. Anyway, I also contemplated, briefly, how silly it would be for me not to plan to attend church the next morning. Well, we now see the humor in this situation. The Lord's providence reigns, and yet through that providence, though it seems slightly negative, there is already manifested positives and good from it.

Positives/good I see from sleeping in:

+I was led to dwell on the Lord's word and His promises which snowballed into thanking Him for His grace to reveal things of this nature.

+I was introspective regarding my legalism

+I was able to catch-up on sleep after a long week of late nights and a coming week of late nights.

+I spent more time with my family than I had originally intended.

+I had a blog subject for the day.

Praise God for His work in the lives of believers.