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- Written by: Don Goulding
Or do you have contempt for the wealth of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, and yet do not know that God’s kindness leads you to repentance? (Romans 2:4)
SCUBA divers know them as cleaning stations. They’re locations on the reef where cleaner shrimp live. Fish stop, open their mouths, and the shrimp hops inside to clean their teeth. I watched my dive guide remove his regulator and open his mouth. The little shrimp worked on his teeth with a featherlight touch. The guide exhaled bubbles and the shrimp jumped back to the rock.
This is another of nature’s symbiotic relationships, where two creatures help each other. The shrimp gets meals delivered to his doorstep, and the guest gets free dental hygiene.
There’s also a symbiotic relationship between grace and repentance. It’s God’s grace that inspires us to repent. At the same time, repentance opens our heart to receive God’s grace.
The fish has to stop chewing and remain motionless while the shrimp picks debris from his teeth. Just so, I have to rest in the grace of Jesus as it removes the sin from my past mistakes and my present character. To continue a life of sin is to refuse the cleansing work underway in my heart.
Grace and repentance are symbiotic. They need each other. There is, however, one vital distinction.
Grace is a cause, while repentance is an effect. God’s grace initiates our reconciliation, then we respond to his kindness with repentance. The two are forever holding hands. Thus, wherever you witness true grace, repentance is but a half step behind.
Prayer: Lord God, I celebrate the union of your grace and my repentance.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
…Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. (Matthew 5:8)
How can I be pure hearted when I have unclean attitudes every day? I desperately want to see God, as Jesus said, so I have to know what it means to be pure hearted.
We picked our way through the mud toward a palm thatched hovel. A six-year-old mute girl in a yellow dress shot out from the curtained doorway. She ran past the Nigerian Bible college student leading me, and threw her arms around my legs. In the villages, my white face normally frightened children who’d never seen a Caucasian, but this precious girl clung with uninhibited love.
Who was pure hearted that day? Not the girl’s mother who was in the hut practicing witchcraft. The neighbors only mocked the child’s enthusiasm. The Bible college students tried to pull her away from their missionary. Instead of swooping her up and saying, “Don’t try to stop her, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these,” I stiffened, and set the girl aside. None of us adults were pure hearted.
The six-year-old wasn’t troubled by what others thought of her. She didn’t concern herself with pride in her stature. She only wanted love and protection, and that made her pure, ready to see God.
It’s been fifteen years since I encountered the pure hearted girl. But whenever I need a reminder of what God expects from me, I close my eyes and see the yellow dress. I remember the squeeze of love at my knees, and I know that pure hearted isn’t complicated. It’s just loving others with arms open wide.
Prayer: Jesus, give me pure love for others.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
For we groan while we are in this tent, since we are weighed down, because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. (2 Corinthians 5:4)
Mom was swallowed by life. When she was a young adult, ailments began to accumulate. She quietly suffered migraines, hypertension, arthritis, fibromyalgia, neuropathy, hypothyroidism, and lymphoma. In the end, it was not illness that took her, but life that swallowed her whole.
We thought we were here in life fighting to keep Mom from death. Sometime in the last days, as she lay in the hospital, she discovered it was the other way around. Her body was death, and life coaxed her free of the cocoon. She demonstrated this discovery by a joyous countenance as she yielded.
As Mom floated away from suffering, a cable of concern for bereft loved ones held her back. True life drew the cord taut and suspended her in the middle.
“If you need to go,” our family told her, “don’t wait until everyone is gathered for goodbyes.”
The cable disintegrated in a gentle pop. And Mom rose.
An image developed out of the fog, Jesus, arms wide, his life pull urgent. Mom raced to him and it happened at contact. Thrill electrified her spirit. She snapped awake to know her life on earth had been a shadow of this new union. Sparks drifted down to reveal peace—permanent, immovable peace the size of a granite mountain.
All this as the arms of Jesus swallowed Mom in life.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for consuming my mother in life.