Grace

"Hello Melvin, I'm reading your entry when u went down to help for deliverance. The clown and john lennon entry? I started to sob, when I read 'i looked like a fool. so that He is glorified'. Thank you, thank you for making it strong so that I can be stronger today."

Dear you,

I was preparing the sermon for tonight's cell. And through it, I thought to myself..
What if Step #1 was not even initiated?
What if the perpetrator was not myself but someone else?
What would be the healing the process?
Even for myself, I have never experienced any of step 1 or steps to reconciliation when trouble came to me these few months.
I have friends but I have yet to "heal".

I thought that perhaps I could share a little on what I managed to receive last night.

Many people like to use this phase to explain when bad things happen to good people: "God will give you grace."
I thought for a very long time about this. Because to me, in the language wise, it just does not add up.
Shouldn't it be "healing" instead?

For tonight, so that I may not be angry with my own hurts, I prayed through and God led me to Ps 73:26
"Consumed hath been my flesh and my heart, The rock of my heart and my portion is God to the age."

When there is a huge hurting and the steps mentioned in the sermon do not occur, we will surely end up as the "consumed".
We become sucked in, sapped and perhaps even emo-centric.

But wise words from Cato (some philosopher): "We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them." (A good quote for gossips)

Cato managed to see that it is "good life".
The rock that David was talking about is not about Jesus. It is not The Rock.
It is a "Grace for Living Today". A Grace enough to carry us into eternity.

This Grace is not a healing miracle. (From Matthew Henry's Concise of Ps 73): But a grace that is sufficient, not only to save us from harm but to make many gainers by it.

The amazing thing is that these things happen without an appropriate reason but an appropriate repercussion: That others including ourselves will gain something through it. It may be Growth, Maturity, Resilience.. whatever it may be. There will be a portal of Gain.

Many american comic artists in the 70s to 80s drew their superheroes from a standpoint. And when fans started speculating how they arrived to becoming superheroes (like Spiderman and Superman, etc), many comic artists decided an approach that "today may not be as what it seemed". They came up with drawings depicting histories that were often dramatic and "unsynchronized" to the "super-flamboyant-character" that they designed. It became a trend and in the 1970s, this writing was called "Retroactive Continuity". It was about enlisting a specific "designed future" by effecting a "scripted past".

If today, you were supposed to be "God's hero" but you are not. Does God need to do a "Retroactive Continuity" over your life?

The answer will be forever no.
Because God keeps adding His Grace to your Retro, Modern and Future.
He is "Retroproductive". He has every purpose for you to go through what you go through everyday.

And that through you, someone (including yourself) will Gain and not be Consumed.

This addition will change you. It may not only be a Moving on, it may be a Moving in.

=]

Believing for the best,
Melvin