The Gift of Grace
Mary Ann and I had the privilege of going to our first mission’s conference last week. It was amazing. Because I was on a mission’s trip to Honduras for most of the week, we were only able to attend the last day. It was an international dinner, our first of many to come I’m sure! Mary Ann asked as we got in the car if all conferences would be like that. I said, “I hope so, but doubt it.” You see, the last four weeks have been the most difficult, trying time in my life and the most exciting thing we did during that time was be able to go to Fremont, Nebraska and present the ministry God has called us to do by going to Portugal and telling people about Jesus. It was a good break and it was exciting to see a glimpse into our future endeavors.
But on to Grace. Grace is the nine-year-old girl pictured here. We had the privilege of receiving our very first love offering from Grace. As you can see, it was a jar of money. One of the most humbling and surreal experiences of my life. We know that God has called us to Portugal and God will provide. Up to this point, we knew that He would provide through His churches and His people. But this jar of money from Grace hit us like a ton of bricks because this is not some big money, big business endeavor where we are taking money from super wealthy corporations or individuals. We now realize God will provide through the sacrifice of sweet followers of Him. I don’t know how long it took Grace to save up this mission’s jar, but I do know that it has changed our perspective on God’s ever-present benevolence.
Three words came to my mind as we drove home from that mission’s conference.
1. Humility.
It’s humbling that God would call us to take His amazing Gospel to the lost in Portugal. It’s humbling that God even cares about us. It’s humbling that a little girl would save her pennies and nickels and dimes, and then for some reason, feel she needed to give that money to us when she could’ve done so many other things with her money. It’s humbling to think of the thousands of dollars people will continue to sacrifice for us. Who are we to be worthy of any of this? I’ve said that many times in my life. Who am I? For some reason I am someone to The One. Jesus. Yes, a jar of money represents a huge sacrifice but it’s pretty small compared to the love of Christ.
2. Responsibility.
Now this is real. Real people are putting real trust in us. As I’ve mentioned many times before, there’s no question in our mind that God has called us to do this. It’s been fun to watch Him guide and direct our life as we’ve never seen before. He’s changed our path multiple times and that’s been reassuring to us that He is the one doing the driving. We have always wanted to please Him with our life but now we realize that real people are making real sacrifices because of something we told them God wants us to do. We better not mess this up.
3. Love.
God really knew we needed to experience His love that night driving home from the conference. I spent that morning planning my father’s very unexpected funeral. There’s a lot of uncertainty about the future but one thing I do know is that God loves me more than we could ever imagine.
In conclusion, God opened our eyes that day through a little girl named Grace, but it was also through a huge gift called grace as well. For the last six months our Sunday school class has been studying grace. I’ve learned so much about this topic and particularly I learned that salvation is not just my ticket to Heaven but it’s the beginning of an amazing relationship with Jesus. It’s through this relationship with Him that He could find me at my lowest point in life and use a girl with a little jar of money to lift me up.
We are so grateful to Grace, her church, and family for not only making missions a priority but also loving others as an evident part of their ministry.