Cascading Self-giving Grace

It had been a long and hot trek to the bottom of the falls. As I stood looking at the cool water cascading over the rocks and felt the air cooled by the presence of the animated stream, and heard the previous babble turn to a roar, I thought about grace. Grace is invisible and often creeps stealthily and unnoticed into our lives. It seldom makes a grand entrance with sound and fury, but it does cascade!

That morning I could not gauge or measure how much water flowed down that falls. It seemed an inexhaustible supply, but a scientist or mathematician (neither of which am I) could calculate the volume. It is far from measureless, though I cannot do so. God’s grace, his unmerited favour, is immeasurable. It is vast and eternal.

I stood in awe, reminded of my weeness and God’s immensity. How could I live in this constant flow of grace and be so ignorant of it?

This is the power of nature. It reminds us of the creator. It points us to the power and the divine attributes of an all gracious God. I am blessed that I can experience this and I am grateful for the opportunity to share this kind of experience with my inner-city friends of Street Hope.  But I was also troubled by the thought of other hikers who saw such falls and left impressed with the measurable. I thought of all those who were stirred by beauty. They were perhaps grateful for the experience but without knowing who to be grateful to.

In that moment I renewed my resolve to, as Paul admonished young Timothy, “Do the work of the evangelist.” People need to know of the God of grace. The God who constantly gives. The great examples of this self-giving is seen in the; incarnation, in the cross and at Pentecost. How sad it is to go through life as recipients of God’s grace and be unaware and unresponsive.

The organized church is not good at helping people discover this grace. I am glad to belong to a society that has at its core the mandate to “help people from all walks of life” discover for themselves the God of grace. Threshold is my home and my fellow Evangelists are my sisters and brothers.

At the base of that falls I rededicated myself to this life of pointing people toward Jesus. I was pleased when I returned home to find a letter from our new Director, Jonathan Clarke, expressing the goal that Threshold would seed 5 new evangelistic ministries, with a vision of launching young Evangelists into this vital work. I’d invite you to join us of Threshold in praying for a growing ministry of evangelism and ask that you consider how you might support such a unique ministry.

I pray to that you might knowingly experience the exceeding abundant flow of grace from our self-giving God.