Presuming more Recklessly on Grace

A couple weeks ago I was sitting down with a mentor that I'm just getting to know. He asked me about my spiritual disciplines.

I launched into my schpeal: I started reading the Scripture and praying nearly daily sometime during my sophomore year of high school. That time matured in college and post-college into a definitive and shaping component of my life as I added journaling to my daily ritual.

Then we had a kid. And the luxury of forty-five minutes to an hour all to myself every day over my Bible and in my journal got tanked.

At this point, he interrupted me: "So what did God do to make up for that?"

I was taken aback by the question. I spent at least two years looking in the rear-view mirror, frustrated by my inability to live up to what had to that point been a primary shaping instrument in my life.

But this mentor is older and wiser in the Lord than I am. He assumed that God is good. He assumed that if something was taken away from me, that God in his grace would act to replace it: "so what did God do to make up for that?"

And the thing is, God did make up for it, just as my mentor assumed he would.

My image of what my primary shaping influences post-college were is me over the Scriptures, in my journal, and reading books. This is not to discount the influence of many friends and in particular what I was learning about grace as I was formed and taught at West End Pres in Richmond, Va.

But my own perception of that time (and who knows what will happen at the end of all things to our own self-perceptions of any given season of our lives?) is very solitary, very focused, very much thinking and working things out on my own.

Post-my sons birth (six years ago on the 24th--happy early b-day Davis!), my primary shaping influences have become people and podcasts. Mentors have sprung up who have poured into me in specific and personal ways that I hadn't had since college. And some significant spiritual friendships have become crucial to my journey.

And podcasts have become critical, too, as I have lost the margin that was once filled with reading great books. Now I listen to sermons and leadership podcasts to and from work and as I run errands around town: Tim Keller, Andy Stanley, Willow Creek Leadership Summits, Marcus Buckingham, and others.

I posted earlier in the week about a patient expectation. This is still certainly a skill that I need to develop. But the instinct to ask the immediately expectant question, "so what did God do to make up for that" is also something that I need to learn as well...