Forgotten Grace
In a moment’s breath a sudden wind had swept over the eastern mountains and dropped swiftly into the valley below. And as this unexpected chill collided with the warmth of the glassy sea surface, it spit a fierce and vengeful wrath upon one tiny boat’s inhabitants. They were already shrouded fearfully in night’s dark cloak, and now also the creaking of cedar planks, threatening to give way, rang in their ears. Waves hacking at the boat’s edge stifled the shouts of the men on board. “Look out!” one yelled, as a wave swelled over the stern. Yet each man pressed on. Four more miles they rowed, heads bent low against their chests and shielding their faces from oncoming waves, seeming to get no closer to Capernaum than when they had left shore.
Then, just as suddenly as the storm itself had risen, an eerie figure emerged in the distance, gliding along the disheveled surface of the wave tops as if walking on solid ground. Though straining forward against the wind, each man aboard could make out the haunting shadow. “A ghost!” one cried, “It’s a ghost!” And any terror that the storm had not yet knocked out of them was in that moment unleashed at this sight.
Yet through the anthem of crashing waves, a man’s voice range out. “Take courage!” his words tossed about like their small boat upon the waves. “It is I. Do NOT be afraid.”
It was in the middle of the Sea of Galilee that Jesus met his disciples. In the midst of a fierce storm as they were shaking in their boots. And as they took him into their boat, the most miraculous thing occurred! The waves and the wind quieted and “immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.” (John 6:21). This is a simple message of grace amidst a storm. Of a Savior coming among those lost in clouds of fearful turmoil and setting all right with His very presence.
But this is not the first miraculous sign of grace they had been given. Interestingly enough, the gospel of John strategically places this tale behind the well-known “Feeding of the Five Thousand”, in which Jesus fed a great crowd of people by miraculous means; an act that left many saying “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:15). How incredible a mystery pointing ahead to the power of this mighty Savior!
How could one look past such a tremendous gift of grace as that? And yet the disciples seemed to. As Jesus walks on water towards his disciples, calming the winds and waves with His very presence, is there any doubt that this is the work of an incredible Savior?? Any doubt that He is present there and working in wondrous ways? Doubts that this is God himself come to earth? Especially after being physically fed by the hand of God in the chapter before?
But perhaps miraculous grace can be forgotten or overlooked. In Mark’s gospel he closes this stormy scene by saying: “Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6:51-52). Somehow Jesus’s majesty had bypassed them before??? Somehow His grace had been overlooked??
But certainly now, NOW, all people would see God’s grace come to life! He had fed the hungry. He had calmed the storm. He had acted as the very living, working hand of God upon earth. These should be enough signs of God’s goodness and grace, shouldn’t they?
But it isn’t! The VERY NEXT day, Jesus is surrounded by many people, and he is asked: “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?” (John 6:30)
I can’t help but think in this moment: WHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM??? Can’t these people see the signs that have been laid before them already? Can’t they see the gracious works of their Savior standing in the flesh among them?
And yet the question remains….do WE not daily also forget God’s grace? …Especially when we are walking in difficult seasons.
The Grace We Want
I think that we, as believers, are tremendous fans of God’s grace. We adore this idea of undeserved love and salvation lavished upon us by God.
Yet if we are honest with ourselves, we only desire God’s grace when we want it and exactly how we want it. In our made-to-order modern world, we want grace to be presented just the same. We only want to accept the offer of God’s grace when there is a promise hidden in it for us. A promise that what is to come will be better than what is now. We want to know that in the grand scheme of things that everything will be ok. But we also demand that the fruition of this grace comes RIGHT NOW!
The Reality of Grace
Yet that is NOT how God’s grace works! There is no promise that as we rest in God’s grace that tomorrow will be better than today. There is no promise that when we wake up with a new sunrise conditions will have improved or that the things or loved ones we have devastatingly lost will be replaced with something better. There is not even a promise that 10, 20, 30 years down the road life will be made better. That is not how grace works. God gives us no such guarantee.
He gives us ONE promise in regards to our future, and it is this:
That He has not yet given us today the grace that we need for tomorrow.
Did you hear that?? We don’t yet have the grace that we need to endure tomorrow!
The Bible is very clear on this:
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus commands. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. EACH DAY has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34). This is not just a suggestion in Scripture. This is a command! The Lord knew that we could not handle the future all at once, and so He instructs us NOT to worry about tomorrow.
But not only are there commands. Here then is a promise in Lamentations 3:22-23: “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are NEW EVERY MORNING. Great is your faithfulness.” Not only did the Lord know that we could not deal with all of eternity in our present state, but because of this, he supplies us with new grace EVERY morning!
This is the reality of grace: that though we demand it in our way and in our time, it is an unmerited gift, partitioned out by a loving Father in just the right moments and in just the right ways.
Grace For Today
In the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, Jesus tells us “…your Father knows what you need before you ask him,” and then He teaches us to pray these familiar words: “…Give us today our DAILY bread.” (Matthew 6:8;11).
We are like the Israelites (see Exodus 16), wandering in the desert. But the Lord provided DAILY for then. With each new day he provided manna to physically sustain them. And all that time He walked with them too, providing them DAILY with the grace they needed to endure.
In the same way, Jesus tells us to ask The Father to sustain us daily. Give us TODAY our DAILY bread, Lord!
And I believe there is a sound reason for this. I think Christ gives us his grace in small pieces, in daily doses, because He knows that we could not handle it all at once. He knows that if He gave us full details into how He is using this very moment for the good of His eternity, that we wouldn’t be able to grasp it all. That we’d fall back like the disciples on the boat, asking the very next day after a perfect miracle had been planted directly in our faces, who this Savior is and what sign He will give us? How quickly we too forget the grace already given to us.
Instead God gives us the grace we need for today. FOR TODAY. In light of His larger saving grace. Because He knows that with our finite minds, we can barely swallow our daily bread as it is, and that we will need constant reminders of His unfailing compassion amidst our brokenness.
Now let us go back to the scene in John 6, in which the people are asking God for a sign.
They asked him: “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat. ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘from now on give us this bread.’ ” (John 6: 30-31) Again, after every bit of grace that has been given them, after every miracle that has stared them directly in the face in the mere days before, they have the audacity to ask for a sign! They are demanding evidence of God’s grace before them. And they want it now!
What does Jesus reply?
“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6: 35-40).
They demand that Jesus gives them a sign of God’s grace and goodness. And his reply? “It’s Me!” Jesus himself is the sign of grace. Or as He told the disciples in the middle of a storm on the Sea of Galilea, “It is I. Do Not be afraid!”
Jesus is the sign of the grace that we have been given. The grace that we are given today, and tomorrow, and the next day. It is the grace that though we are forgetful, and though it does not always come in the time and by the means that we demand, has sustained us from the very moment of our conception, and which we will cling to until He returns.
This is a grace that is so tremendous that we cannot even begin to fathom its capacity. But God also knows that we, like the followers in the gospel of John, often get so overwhelmed with the troubles of this world that we daily forget the goodness of God’s grace. And so thankfully we are sustained by an incredible Father who gives us our DAILY bread! Christ is our daily bread. Our daily reminder of grace. Not that we are guaranteed that tomorrow will be better than today in the ways that we long for it to, or that the sorrows brought on by this storm will completely heal in this life. But that we see Him and simply trust that He will sustain us through today, and that when tomorrow comes He will sustain us through tomorrow as well. Especially when we are caught in the midst of a storm.
“Take courage…Do not be afraid!” (Matthew 14:27)
We have been given enough grace for today.
A Note: Some of these are words that have been bouncing around in my head for many months now. Some time ago, I wrote “Lord, give me the grace I need for TODAY” in sharpie on my laptop, where I would see it daily. But as I have been reading through the book of John for my daily devotions, and in light of the recent sudden changes to all of our lives with the COVID-19 pandemic, these words have become even more real to me. For the past several weeks I have been fumbling around with these words, trying to lay them out in a way, as above, where they could encourage and sustain others in this time as well. I hope that they have done that for you. We serve a tremendous God who loves and upholds us! May God receive glory, even through all of this!
God is good ALL the time!
3/29/2020
Proverbs 19:21 
Thanks, Mariellen.
You are both a recipient and a dispenser of God’s grace.