God's Great Grace

   Yesterday we sang a song in church. We may have done it before, but as I thought about it later, and reread the words, I found that it reflected what I had felt on that last Thanksgiving morn as I walked in the early sun-coming-up time. Here is the Matt Redmon song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orY_OWKTyfU&spfreload=10

   And here are the words to the first stanza:

"Your Grace Finds Me"

[VERSE 1:]
It’s there in the newborn cry
There in the light of every sunrise
There in the shadows of this life
Your great grace

It’s there on the mountain top
There in the everyday and the mundane
There in the sorrow and the dancing
Your great grace
Oh such grace

   And here were my thoughts in the quiet time that day as I remember it this morning.

   The light was just beginning to glow in the east as I walked down the long driveway on a farm over in Middle Georgia. It was quiet, quiet enough that my footsteps on the gravel were the only things I heard. No birds, no scurrying animals, no cars on the roads, nothing but me. Even my thoughts were still as I walked.

   We had come to a  friend's place for Thanksgiving. I was thankful in a general way, but primarily for the quiet of the time and nature's surroundings in that wooded scene. It was just a nice place to be and a nice time to be in it.

   As I reached the gate and stepped out into the road, nothing moved. As I looked back from where I had come, I saw the drive winding back through the woods, a half mile of gravel, only the last part could I see, not the beginning at the house, nor how it might look as I retraced my steps. Only the part that I was standing in at the moment.

   Going back through the gate, I heard the solitary pecking of a woodpecker over to my right. Stopping, I looked up into the trees and spotted him (or her) working on breakfast.

   I knew it was time for the sunrise, but where I stood on the ground, no rays had come. Looking up I saw the promise of the new day, high in the tree in front of me.

   That scene came back to me yesterday, in the words of that song.

   The sunlight as a symbol of God's Grace for me, and, indeed, for each of us, as I stood in the semi-darkness of that forest floor and saw the color of His creation shining above me.

   What is grace?

   God's Unmerited Favor

   Not worked for…not deserved…but there nonetheless.

   As I moved forward, back up the drive, and the light kept bending more and more to the ground, brightening the scenes all around me. What a show!

   God's Great Grace, a reminder in the top of a tree by a darkened path, and the fullness of it, reflected in the beauty all around.

   And a more specific Thanksgiving prayer…

   For His Great Grace