Enduring grace
When life is hard, when we feel we cannot fight anymore, where does the strength come from? When we hurt and the world tells us to say down how do we get up? How do we just do it? The answer is grace, empowering , enduring grace!
Derek Redmond is an example of enduring grace. Derek is an Olympic runner and a good one. In 1988 he made it to the Seoul Olympics but just 10 minutes before he was due to race injury forced him to back out. Four years and eight operations later he was in Barcelona and favored to win the 400meters. Yet while running in a semi-final heat Derek heard something pop as he felt sharp pain run up his leg. Hurt and watching his hopes and dreams run away before him, he made a choice that now defines him. Here is a clip of the race.
In his moment of truth, He got up and continued on! In His words,
Everything I had worked for was finished. I hated everybody. I hated the world. I hated hamstrings. I hated it all. I felt so bitter that I was injured again. I told myself I had to finish. I kept hopping round. Then, with 100 metres to go, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was my old man.”
Jim Redmond Derek’s father, wearing a T-shirt that asked “Have You Hugged Your Foot Today?”, runs on to the track,. He slows his son back to a hobble and throws a supportive arm around him. As Redmond is helped down the home stretch of the track, he begins to cry. In Derek’s words, “It was the last thing I was expecting. … I told him just to help me get back into my correct lane. ... He said, We would finish the race together.”
They finished together a hurt and fallen child leaning on the strength and love of His Father. That is a picture of enduing grace.
So What Of Courage
Some may ask but wasn’t Derek courageous? What of his personal courage? It is true he was courageous but not the courage born of self-sufficiency. The courage Derek shows us rises from humility. It is courage not to give up because it is courage to let yourself be helped. It is the courage to receive. Such courage understands the helplessness of doing it alone and thankfully receives the grace to make it one more step. Four thoughts come to mind.
1. Courage is found in humility. It takes great courage to look honesty at yourself. The courage to stand before our Majestic Father, in the light of his holiness and see who we are in his light takes courage.
2. Such courage is embodied in dependence on one who will see us through all the way to the end. Any time we fall me must get up. To continue on in grace is courageous given the epic nature of our sin and his holiness.. It is courageous trust in enduring grace to walk away from where we have fallen because the blood has changed us and we believe that sin’s presence may plague us but its power has no hold in God’s forgiving grace.
3. Humility is the poster and power of enduring grace. Many people live life with hands full of stuff or clinched in defiance; humility is the poser of open hands and a clean heart. Such a poster places us in a position to receive from God.
4. The embodying of such grace is not lost on the observers of it. Such enduring grace inspires and changes those around us. Prior the 1992 Olympics, Redmond had a hostile relationship with fellow British runner Linford Christie, the 100 meter gold medal winner. The two athletes criticized each other publicly, and Redmond was quoted to comment on Christie as "He's a well-balanced athlete; he has a chip on both shoulders" But as Redmond was leaving the field after his heroic semi-final race, he was approached by Christie. The two men embraced and cried together. "He has a heart," Redmond said. "I've changed my views of him completely."
Showing posts with label courage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label courage. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Saturday, March 24, 2007
The song that life is made of
The greatest darkness is not disappointment. The greatest challenge is not adversity. The greatest test in life is living itself for in each breath we take, life asks of us the honest question, "Can you live in this breath you have been given?" Life is demanding. Life demands living yet so many never do truly live. They patter around on the edges of life yet never find its center. It has been said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” True but equally true is that such a life is a shallow and miserable existence.
Living in the honest, "What am I?"
Living begins in the opening of the eyes. To look deep into the inky blackness of ones heart, or to stand before your biology, the oddly/uniquely(choose your perspective)shapen aspects of the clay and say “I AM what I AM” by the grace of the one true, "I AM" who is my thou to my I. All talents are seen as gifts all limps are "birth"-day gifting too, our shape is for our training, for this present purpose, in a plan for another glory than my own. All to real are the realities we live before God. This is a painful honesty that cuts us free from self-deception. Crippling is its burden, crushing is its judgments, freeing is hearing the voice of one lisping in soft tones, “But, I AM that I AM” This is authentic humanity leaning into the wind, the honesty of man at its painful best. To face a heart leathered by time and regret, and say”Yes” to life in spite of life is the beginning of an eternal kind of living. It is the accepting that one is accepted, and the loving that one is loved! It is Grace! The Courage to be as you are, in the grace of who you are in him. The path to faith begins at the gate marked thankful and inscribed on it are these words. "by the grace of God I am what I am!" This is the way walk in it.
Living by courage
Living continues in the courage to face life head on. To face all fears that chain us down, all shattered dreams that cut at our hope, to face all moments when promises wear the cloaks of paupers and say, “He is still Good!” is a courage few enter into. It is a courage that rises from without and not contoured from within. It is the courage to live in our dying days, to believe even in unbelief. Life demands courage, honesty, and hope, and great is the weak that find we haven’t the tools to produce them. Greater still are the weak that find all we need to do is inhale grace and we breathe out of abundance. Even when life pins us breathless we can know our tears testify that there is one “breathing” for us. Even in our unbelief he is still breathing, sustaining, keeping our faith for us. Such knowledge is a deep solace for all that believe in the darkness. On the calm waters of reflection we can hear the faint prayers of such hearts saying, “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.” “Jesus, I believe, help my unbelief!” “Spirit, I believe not, believe in me!”
I often hear them on lazy Sunday afternoons. In the movements when I meet myself in passing and the stillness of heaven touching earth surrounds me. I hear the mown of hearts in process, the prayers of broken men and women. To me, it is the sound of courage. A cry stating, he is even in the darkness. A lover’s mown so honest and authentic it signals to all that truly He blesses those that seek him. A mown so real it touches the cusp of reality itself, energizing all things in a deep mystery, infusing all that is with the honest pleasure of His Presence. It is the sound of nails digging into the cross. It is the sound of hearts trusting in His goodness. It is the grown of rest in a God bigger than our unbelief. It is the sound of worship.
It is the song of the redeemed.
Living in the honest, "What am I?"
Living begins in the opening of the eyes. To look deep into the inky blackness of ones heart, or to stand before your biology, the oddly/uniquely(choose your perspective)shapen aspects of the clay and say “I AM what I AM” by the grace of the one true, "I AM" who is my thou to my I. All talents are seen as gifts all limps are "birth"-day gifting too, our shape is for our training, for this present purpose, in a plan for another glory than my own. All to real are the realities we live before God. This is a painful honesty that cuts us free from self-deception. Crippling is its burden, crushing is its judgments, freeing is hearing the voice of one lisping in soft tones, “But, I AM that I AM” This is authentic humanity leaning into the wind, the honesty of man at its painful best. To face a heart leathered by time and regret, and say”Yes” to life in spite of life is the beginning of an eternal kind of living. It is the accepting that one is accepted, and the loving that one is loved! It is Grace! The Courage to be as you are, in the grace of who you are in him. The path to faith begins at the gate marked thankful and inscribed on it are these words. "by the grace of God I am what I am!" This is the way walk in it.
Living by courage
Living continues in the courage to face life head on. To face all fears that chain us down, all shattered dreams that cut at our hope, to face all moments when promises wear the cloaks of paupers and say, “He is still Good!” is a courage few enter into. It is a courage that rises from without and not contoured from within. It is the courage to live in our dying days, to believe even in unbelief. Life demands courage, honesty, and hope, and great is the weak that find we haven’t the tools to produce them. Greater still are the weak that find all we need to do is inhale grace and we breathe out of abundance. Even when life pins us breathless we can know our tears testify that there is one “breathing” for us. Even in our unbelief he is still breathing, sustaining, keeping our faith for us. Such knowledge is a deep solace for all that believe in the darkness. On the calm waters of reflection we can hear the faint prayers of such hearts saying, “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.” “Jesus, I believe, help my unbelief!” “Spirit, I believe not, believe in me!”
I often hear them on lazy Sunday afternoons. In the movements when I meet myself in passing and the stillness of heaven touching earth surrounds me. I hear the mown of hearts in process, the prayers of broken men and women. To me, it is the sound of courage. A cry stating, he is even in the darkness. A lover’s mown so honest and authentic it signals to all that truly He blesses those that seek him. A mown so real it touches the cusp of reality itself, energizing all things in a deep mystery, infusing all that is with the honest pleasure of His Presence. It is the sound of nails digging into the cross. It is the sound of hearts trusting in His goodness. It is the grown of rest in a God bigger than our unbelief. It is the sound of worship.
It is the song of the redeemed.
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