Morning Snow on the Field

The snow is drifting past the window this morning, lighting on the field outside our study. It's beautiful. Then, I cannot forget that it won’t be long before the accumulated mass of white will demand that I have to fire up the snow blower and start clearing a path out of the house. That’s the way it seems to be. For every blessing there is a cost, and visa versa.

I guess that is part of the equilibrium, the balance, we’ve been thinking about in the past few post. Life is full of beauty and struggle. We confront them both. The balance may be not in letting either the beauty or the struggle define our days. Too much accentuation of the beauty without recognizing the struggle breeds illusionary denial where everything is peachy and the troubles are ignored. Likewise, accentuating the struggle without seeing the inherent beauty breeds cynicism, contempt, anger where we feel victimized at every turn.

Paul was a good one for seeing both. He never spoke of grace without noting sin, and never discussed our sin without accentuating grace. The key for Paul was that we need to live by grace, not sin. That is to say, our orientation, as conscious as it needs to be of our sin, is facing towards the beauty of grace.

Have a wonderful new year’s evening, and may the day, the night and the new year be one where grace makes its presence known amidst our struggles and sin.