Letter to my son. How I view Grace

I have been praying for meekness, lowliness of heart, virtue and greater confidence.  I suppose that confidence may be a result of virtue.  I also noticed in the scriptures that meekness and lowliness of heart are precursors to the other spiritual gifts.  But, it might not matter where a person starts on their inward change journey.

For me, I want to be aware and present enough to be able to respond the way God wants me to respond when I am confronted with a new stimulus.  I don’t want have a knee jerk reaction which could be retaliation or reviling.  This is where meekness and lowliness of heart comes into play.  I show my faith in Jesus Christ when I, with intention, try, in my weakness, to be humble and meek as Jesus would.  This shows God that I want it.  Not just lip service.  Not just giving intellectual assent to Jesus’ atonement.

When I get down or frustrated I systematically write down each frustration.  I then determine if anything can be done with each item.  If not, I leave it on God’s hands.  I surrender it.  This is a prayer.  If I believe I can do or should do something about it, I write down what is to be done and put a date next to it.  It then put all the dates in my calendar.  This process lets my unconscious know that I am serious and the frustration goes away.  If I don’t get things done by the date specified, no worries.

I am very glad that you are working on you own process.  I will continue to pray for you and Sara.  We are in this together. 

Here’s what I recently wrote Doug: “I have been trying to view my earth life from the perspective of grace rather than from the perspective of my weaknesses.  When I let grace shine on me, it reveals my sins in a different way.  My old way is feeling ashamed or frustrated. This new way says: that obviously wasn’t the best way be, I think I will change that (with Christ’s help).  If it takes me an eternity to change (a 1000 times) so be it.  I am not in rebellion.  I am under grace and love being under grace.”

I am practicing taking this different perspective.  Heavenly Father’s has graced us with many things.  I view life in this light.

Love,

Dad