Learn the Unforced Rhythms of Grace

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'“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”' 
Matthew 11:28-30 https://my.bible.com/bible/97/MAT.11.28-30 


Over the last 5 or 6 years has been some of the most difficult times in my life, but somehow I am still here. It has taken it's toll on the mental, physical and spiritual level and often found myself asking the question, "why?" Well, there weren't any answers to that. And just as many times, I have asked myself what I can do to find my way back into God's good grace again. 

I tried everything - I mean everything and I am pretty sure somewhere in the midst of that I tried to blackmail God. You know, "if you don't show up God, I am going to stop praying and you can throw stop going to church into that as well..." I know it is a bit silly but it was desperate times. 

Is it over? No, it isn't. I am still on that journey to getting my step back in line with God's. But as I read the Bible in my devotion time, this passage in Matthew 11:28-30 (MSG) popped out at me. I must have read it hundreds of times, but the phrase "Learn the Unforced Rhythms of Grace" caught me. The answer to "what can I do to find my way back into God's good grace again?" was NOTHING! 

There was nothing I can do because I have never left His Grace and peace. People have asked me on multiple times how is it that I am still standing with everything seemingly crashing around me. My answer was "I don't know", I knew that I didn't have the strength to go through it. But in hindsight (everything is better in hindsight isn't it?), it is because God's grace and peace never left me. I would sit on the floor of my bedroom, every morning and evening praying and reading my devotion, hoping to take some strength for the coming day. 

Reading this passage, I realise that as I humble myself before the living God in those times, I was learning what it meant to live with the unforced rhythms of His Grace. It wasn't religion that forced me to sit on the cold floor each morning and night. Rather it was the weight of life, the unforeseen circumstance, and the expectation of people that can never be matched that worn me down, the desperation to find a way through the period. There was nothing I could have done or deserve but the beauty of God's Grace is that I didn't deserve it. It was given so that I may learn to live freely and lightly as I walk with Him. It is in the quiet times of the night or morning, there is no one else around but me and my God, that I learn the strength I have in Him to go through each day.

The times in prayer and Bible reading isn't a religious thing for me now, rather it is something I enjoy doing. Spending time with Jesus, humbling myself and learning what it is to live with the unforced rhythms of His Grace. I hope that you find the same unforced rhythms of grace of your life as well.

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