Borrowed, Found, Inherited

January 25, 2020

A GRACE BORROWED, FOUND, INHERITED

1. Not being the creative type myself, anything worthwhile I have to say is borrowed, most frequently from Scripture. God promised to bless his word, not mine, so when preaching, I’ve always tried to stick pretty close to the text and wring everything out of it I possibly could. Borrowed grace served me well for nearly fifty years, and I expect will continue to do just fine well into the future.

2. Some of God’s graces don’t feel very grace-filled when he first drops them in our laps. Last week while I was speaking on leadership to a group of Cuban Christians, I heard God preaching my sermon to me, and didn’t like it one bit. I told him so. “I don’t want to do this; I want to actually try retirement. I don’t know anything about this, don’t know anyone who does, don’t have the money, don’t have the place to do it, and most of all, don’t have any interest in it.” God has a strange way of not paying attention to our very reasonable and good excuses, so I’m finding myself like Jonah, trudging reluctantly to my Nineveh. 

3. Barring some freak accident, I’m likely going to be around for quite a few more years. Which is a good thing, because I’m going to need them to accomplish the things I think God is setting before me. My paternal grandmother lived to be 100, my grandfather 88. My maternal grandmother lived to be 88; my grandfather died young, but was a smoker who had a heart attack in his fifties, before there was much of any treatment for heart disease. My father lived to be 92, and mom is still (almost) going strong at 97, so the genetics are favorable. I not only inherited the longevity gene, but have a spiritual heritage that has been my life’s foundation. 

These three graces have shaped and guided me for seventy years. If God gives me as many more as my paternal grandmother, I expect they will do so for many more, in which case, I hope they will bless others, too.