Devotion 5- By Grace
“By grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is a gift of God.” -Ephesians 2:8
In Kindergarten you get complimented for a lot of things that you never would anywhere else. For example, I have kiddos say: “Wow you’re really good at tying shoes.” or “Wow you tied my shoe so quickly, good job.” So today as I write I am thinking about the skill of tying shoes. It is not something that comes naturally to us. Leave a child to natural development and they will learn to walk and talk, but tying shoes is a skill that has to be much more explicitly taught. Until my students eventually learn how to tie their shoes, they rely on people like me to tie it for them. Many of my students don’t even bother asking me to tie it, they just keep playing until I notice and tell them to come over and tie it so they do not trip. All of this makes me think of something else that does not come naturally to me. That thing is faith. Doubt, fear, and pride… those things come very naturally, but faith… that one I need a whole lot of help on. Faith isn’t something that I can just work up inside of myself. Nope, faith is something that comes only as a sweet gift from God in His grace. Not only is salvation a gift from God, but the faith itself. In my baptism, God gave me something that I could never do myself. God caught me running around the playground and gave me the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the sweet helper that leans down to tie my shoes over and over again. Luckily, I will never have to tie my shoes all by myself… God’s grace is a gift that keeps on giving through childhood, adulthood, and on and on… I can open up that Bible, go to church, or sit in a quiet place by myself and the Holy Spirit is working faith inside of me despite how unnaturally it comes.
