Engaging Grace Through a Posture of Prayer

Grace is really crucial. One of my mentors defines grace as "the empowering presence of God that enables you to do what God is asking you to do and be what God is asking you to be." It is God's grace that empowers us to do God's work. Sounds pretty simple. It is. But how do we engage this grace?

Proverbs 3:34 says that God, "mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble." Clearly humility attracts the empowering presence of God enabling us to walk in the fullness of who God called us to be. But in my mind it seems difficult to think someone could work up humility. Can someone become humble? I want to ensure that there is the empowering presence of God in every area of my life and ministry, so how can I keep this humility that attracts grace?

Both James 4:10 and 2 Chronicles 7:14 tell us to humble ourselves, so it must be possible. Biblically speaking, there are many times when scriptures testify that someone humbled themselves before the Lord (Psalm 69:10, 2 Kings 22:19, Daniel 10:12), and in almost every case it is a posture of prayer or fasting. According to the word of God, you humble yourself when you engage in the activity of prayer. It makes sense when you think about it.

In times when we come to the end of our strength we tend to cry out to God for help. When we're going through something with a child, or on our job, or in a marriage or you name it, and we can't seem to get a break we cry out to God with a certain intensity that shows our desperation. That desperation actually is a form of humility because it says, "I can't do anything in this situation. I need my God to do something." And this humility attracts grace.

So the opposite is true too. When we're pretty sure of ourselves and things aren't so dire, we are tempted to let up and not cry out to God like we did when we were in trouble. What is our prayerlessness saying? It unknowingly communicates that we can handle this on our own and in this certain situation we don't need the empowering presence of God. That is dangerous. So what is the answer?

It is important that we live reflectively and watch out for places in our lives where we have let up on our prayers. It is those places that we have subtly been tempted into thinking we can handle things on our own, and it is then in those places that our pride will resist the grace that we need to live well before God. If this seems simple it's because it is. In a sentence what I'm trying to say is, our life of prayer exhibits a humility that attracts the grace we so desperately need to live.

Selah

I love you all,

N8