"There's grace for this!"

Grace is a big deal at my church. And it should be - grace sums up God's disposition toward his kiddos. Wayne Grudem defines grace in his book Bible Doctrine as "God's goodness toward those who deserve only punishment." So simple - yet so weighty. We deserve God's just punishment for our sins - yet he sent Jesus to die as our substitute, take all the wrath due to us, and credit us with the reward of heaven that only he deserved. We deserve God's just punishment for our sins - yet, for his children, his help is available to fight against anything that would displease him and do eternal harm to us (basically our sin). Grace is a big deal, and I'm glad my church makes much of it.

However, my church also has a very specific 'lingo', and one of the things that is oft repeated in the lobby and whispered in the bathroom to struggling congregants is "there's grace for this..."

I was standing at my kitchen island one night recounting my weariness in my struggle against discontent.

And then it came.

"Kari, there's grace for this," my husband said.

My hands flew to my forehead and I said "Don't say that! I know scripture promises there's grace for me, but how do I practically access it!? I feel like I just need a big draught - where's the bar?!"

"Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." --Hebrews 4:14-16

This passage tells me to draw near to God confident in my mediator, Jesus. Through his death, Jesus has made it possible for me to boldy approach his father without the fear of wrath, and ask for help in time of need.

So what does "drawing near with confidence" look like? First of all, we must have put our trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. Without the "great high priest" this passage talks about, we cannot approach confidently, because the sin that has separated us from God is still separating us. Only by repenting of our sin against God and trusting Jesus to have taken all the punishment we deserve for them can we draw near.

I would contend that step two (after accepting Jesus as the savior we need) will always be humbly praying, and in our prayers, simply asking for this grace. With our heart postured in this way before God, any other means of help we pursue will be more effective. The advice of other believers may, sadly, fall on deaf ears if we haven't humbly asked God to allow us to accept good counsel. Hearing God's word preached may not penetrate a hard heart we haven't asked God to soften. Reading scripture may be inigmatic if we haven't asked God to open it up to us.
By crying out in prayer with a heart submitted to the will of God, we're posturing ourselves to recieve the grace we long for.

Since that night, I've "found the bar" - and there's nothing sweeter than falling down at the feet of my father - rich in mercy, full of love, eager to help - and just saying "abba, father, I'm weak. Help me." And he has more "grace to help in time of need" than I could ever use up.

Superpower?

Stephan and I were in our kitchen last week and he was sharing how he'd sinned earlier in the day. Then he recounted how he had seen his sin, repented of it, and turned from it. He was, however, still discouraged.

"Dude," I said, "it's approriate to grieve your sin and feel appropriately convicted, but doing what you did - turning from it - that's a superpower that's only available to the children of God. Rejoice that through Jesus, you can turn from your sin and seek God's glory."

...

Ever regret giving someone advice, because then you have to follow it yourself? Yeah...I was sinning up a storm this week, but tried to remember the superpower I discribed to my husband - the opportunity, through Jesus, to put off my sin and put on gospel-motivated righteousness. That's no small thing, man, no small thing.

Meet Stephan...

May I introduce my husband, who apparently posted a photo to my blog from my Picassa account last week...

Here are a few more pictures of the most wonderful man in the world, some featuring the most fortunate girl in the world (me, not the baby...). Enjoy!

This is a photo of KAri and I. It's sideways. I think kari is very pretty, and she has nice eyes. (this post done by stephan) I love Kari.

Multiple evidences...

...that my husband is the best in the world!

Earlier this month I worked over the weekend and had enough comp time to take a day off. I chose that Wednesday, because Stephan didn't have class. He still had homework to do, but I had stuff to do too, so it was agreed upon that we would take a couple hours to spend time together but devote most of the day to stuff-doing.

We got up on time, despite the option to sleep in, and made our way to our church's prayer room. It was a wonderful, non-rushed time of communion with God. Our pastors are doing a preaching series on the book of Jeremiah, and the prayer points for the prayer room are taken from that book as well. It's pretty powerful.

Afterwards, Stephan and I came home and chatted while we put together a puzzle his mom had loaned us. We find we really enjoy them.

It was then, however, time to get to work. Stephan did some homework while I sent some emails, and at 9 o'clock we got in the car and headed down to DC, to my favorite tea house - Teaism.

There are three Teaism locations, and Stephan wanted to try a new one this trip, so we did. When we walked in, however, it looked for all the world like any other sterile, high-end asian restaraunt. Something you have to understand about our original Teaism location is that it's crammed into an old, skinny, DC row house. The paint is chipping. The stairs dip down in the center of each step where hundreds of people have walked on them. The banisters are smooth from use. The windows actual open on their hinges. There's a little zen garden outside in the 4 feet between the door and the sidewalk. I don't think the floor isn't even level. I immediately fell in love with the rustic, alternative atmosphere, so stepping into this marble-floored, mirrored restaraunt was a little dissapointing. Stephan must have noticed the look on my face.

Evidence #1 for the day: even though we'd put money in the meeter, he insisted we leave and go back to the other Teaism, because he knew I liked it better. What a guy =)

So we did. The breakfast food is phenomenal. I got cilantro scrambled eggs with naan bread and a chicken-apple sausage. Stephan got the sausage too with a sourdough waffle and apples. His drink of choice was Chai, and I got an African red tea.

We sat at a crammed little table by a windowin the corner. After breakfast we pulled out our computers and did our respective stuff in the sunlight.

Around 1 the lunch crowd started to role in and we decided to leave. We made our way downstairs and I was practically skipping - the moment I'd patiently waited for all morning was finally arriving.

Teaism vends an amazing confection called a 'salty oat cookie'. The inventor had an oatmeal and raisin cookie one day while Kayaking, and as the first bite slid past her sea-salty lips...voila! My favorite baked-good was born! I don't know anywhere else to get them, and it had been a long time since we'd been down to Teaism, so...

My face fell when I reached the bottom of the stairs. There was a line out the door. I turned to Stephan. "Maybe it's not that important..." I started.

Evidence # 2 - "We'll wait!" he said, jovially grabbing me under the arm and pulling me toward the end of the line before it got any longer. I tried to protest, but I admit, it was half hearted.

The line moved faster than I anticipated, and before I knew it, I had not one, but two salty oat cookies in little Teasim bags as I sauntered out the door to our car - one original, and the new chocolate salty oat cookie to spice things up.

I was actually singing as I got in the car and broke the cookies in half for Stephan and I to share.

We made our way home and we were actually pretty tired, so we did something we never do - took an hour long cat-nap. It was actually more refreshing that I thought it would be and I was grateful we'd done it. When we woke up, Stephan strolled over to the window and looked out.

Evidence # 3 - He completely rethought date-night plans for me. "You know," he murmured. "I know date night was supposed to start at 5, but It's 3 now and so nice out..." He turned to me. "Would you enjoy if we did date night in the afternoon and went for a hike and came home and worked more once it got dark?"

Is Schwartzenegger hard to spell?

We were off to Great Falls National Park, and the Billy Goat Trail! It's been hard to get outside during the winter, so I was elated to hop in the car and head for the Potomac, and the craggy trail that has become my favorite woodland haunt. So spunky were we from our nap and the sunshine that we completed the trail in record time! The wind off the river was a little chilly. When we got back in the car to go home, evidence # 4 showed up - Stephan stopped at Starbucks to get me something warm to wrap my hands around! Evidence # 5 wasnt' far behind - I got a mocha and he got a caramel apple cider, and he let me drink as much as I wanted of both.

My mind went back to the salty oat cookies. One thing about me is that I love variety in my food. I love tapa bars because you can get a bunch of little meals in one sitting instead of just one. Legend has it that on our honeymoon while I was really sleepy one night Stephan started asking me questions, and one of these posed to me was "why do you love me?" In my drowsy babblings I proportedly included "because when we go out to restaraunts you're always wiling to get two different things and let me have half of each - that way, I get all the food!" This statement has gone down in FFF (Faherty Family Folklore), and every time he shares something with me he asks "do you still love me because you get all the food?" I just smile, nod, and eat what he shared with me first. He's shared his cookie so I could have two varieties. He was sharing his drink so I could have two varieties. "He really is the best husband in the world," I thought as we got on the interstate and returned to our cozy little apartment.

The night was filled with studying and other stuff-doing. By bedtime the laundry was done, my email box was empty, my calendar was up-to-date, the floors were vacuumed, and I'd gotten to do some pleasure writing - as well as spend some time with my amazing, geniful husband.

We were in bed on schedule to get up early the next morning, and we fell asleep listening to a book on tape. It was a wonderful day. God has been very kind to me. I can't believe I get to live with Stephan all the time. He's just the best.

1 Tim 3:11

A couple weeks ago my husband displayed his extraordinary humility again by asking me to begin praying 1 Tim 3:1-13 for him. This is a set of passages that talk about the qualifications of overseers and deacons - I don't think it's a far stretch to think about this is qualifications for pastors too.

As I began doing this, I came across this verse stuck in the middle:

"Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things."

Well, if Stephan wanted to be that kind of man, I certainly wanted to be that kind of woman. For some reason the last quality, "faithful in all things", really stood out to me - not because I felt I excelled at faithfulness, but because I didn't.

Givign some thought and prayer to what faithfulness looked like, I settled upon a functional definition. It certainly isn't all encompassing, but it's helped me evaluate my level of faithfulness in different areas.

Faithfulness is doing what you've committed to doing (what God has clearly commanded or given you faith for in a season) in a timely way, and if you can't, saying so.

This takes work. But if anyone can accomplish this in me, the God who is able to do abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine can!