“Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick', whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.
'But how?' we ask.
Then the voice says, 'They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'
There they are. There *we* are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.
My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
PSALM 85-87
ROMANS 8:19-39
JOURNAL
Sometimes life just gets the best of me. I get distracted, I lose perspective, I fall back into old patterns, and sometimes I simply blow it. Those are the moments when the temptation is strongest to hide, run away, or find some kind of relief that allows me to escape what I am feeling. Shame tells me to withdraw. Fear tells me to fix it myself. My pride tells me I should have been better than this.
But maybe this is exactly why surrender has to be daily. I am never going to surrender once and suddenly get everything right. Every morning I surrender myself, my plans, my outcomes, and my need for control to God, but inevitably there will be moments when I pick some of them back up again. There will be times when I fail. Grace means that failure does not have to send me running away from God. It can actually become the moment I run back to Him.
When I blow it, I don't have to hide. I don't have to run off somewhere and start over. I don't have to numb myself, distract myself, justify myself, or seek relief in something destructive. I can simply surrender again. I can come back to God exactly as I am, acknowledge what happened, lay it before Him, and once again make room for His Spirit. Maybe that is one of the greatest freedoms of the Gospel. There is always a way home, and that way is surrender.
That is what Paul's words make so powerful. Nothing can separate me from the love of God. Not hardship, failure, weakness, disappointment, or even my own worst moments. God's love is not dependent upon me getting everything right. His grace becomes the anchor that allows me to face the truth about myself without being destroyed by it. I don't have to pretend, hide, or escape because I already know where I am loved.
Maybe the storms, struggles, heartaches, frustrations, and even failures are part of where faith becomes real. They continually bring me back to the same place: open hands before God. Surrender is not something I accomplish. It is a way of living. Today I surrender. When I lose my way, I surrender again. When I blow it, I surrender again. And tomorrow morning, I begin again.
God is still faithful. God is still present. God still loves me. Nothing has separated me from Him. So I can stop running, stop hiding, and return to the God who is my strength and my shield. That is grace, and that is the freedom of daily surrender.
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