Bedtime Grace

It's bedtime and you are preparing to turn in for the evening. The kids have been tucked in bed for a while but you check on them once more before you retire. You have watched your favorite TV program or read a few chapters in a book. The evening news and weather reports have just ended. All the lights are turned off except your bedside lamp and you make your way to bed. 

 What is usually on your mind at this point? Perhaps a few minutes to read something from the Bible? Maybe some thoughts about the day's activities or thoughts preparing you for tomorrow's responsibilities? Finally you reach over and turn off the lamp, but while you are resting your head on the pillow in the darkness of your bedroom, other thoughts come to your mind. 

One man I recently talked to said that is the time he starts asking himself questions.  Most of his questions are things like, did he make the right decision in the discipline of his children today? Was he productive at work, meeting the expectations of his supervisor?

He confessed that as a Christian, there were times when he questioned his relationship to God and wondered if he was living the life and being the person God wanted him to be. Further, this is the time he questions himself about helping people who are in need, being a friend to the friendless, and even his reaction to others in the church when there are disagreements.

As we talked, he admitted that he goes to sleep at night only after spending some time in prayer while wrestling over questions that are almost impossible to answer.  Then he asked if all that was normal or was he the only one that went through this procedure? I chuckled a bit and told him he had asked me a question that I couldn't answer. 

First of all, I did assure the man he was on the right track by taking these things to God in prayer each night, and the continued prayer of searching for answers to his questions was the correct way to ultimately find God's answers.  

I keep being reminded and also reminded my friend that some of those unanswered questions could be directly related to God's claim in Isaiah 55:9, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Above all, I told my friend that as a Christian, he needed to live his life knowing the blessing of God's grace.  Grace is God's gift to us because we are imperfect Christians, lacking, sinning, causing chaos, bringing disappointment, and not meeting expectations. Romans 5:1-2, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God." 

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