I had the brilliant idea to push myself way beyond my usual crazy busy life in the month of August. It is all for good reasons and things I need to get moved and done, but it creates a crazy schedule none the less. I did have side effects from my crazy schedule. As of right now, I can count three important tasks that I just dropped or forgot. This is evidence that I definitely pushed myself too hard.

In the middle of it all, I am simply amazed by all the goodness of our Lord. Not that I want to take advantage of His goodness. It makes me want to take better care of myself in the future, but it makes me extremely grateful to God for His amazing love, care and protection.

I’m mindful that my entire life is all about His grace. Everything comes down to grace. I don’t deserve His tender care and protection in spite of the schedule I planned. He gave it. I could see God guiding, helping and protecting me all along the way. It increased my daily prayers too. My experience of His grace was deepened as I realized how silly my planning had been.

His grace astounds me. There is not one person on this earth who is not in desperate need of the grace of God. My friend just returned from a mission trip to Honduras where she visited prisons. She met with M-16 gang members chained together in groups of ten. She shared the grace of God with them. They responded to this grace. Her guide on the mission trip had been in the gangs and had killed over 50 people; he lived in that grace by helping these missionaries bring relief to his fellow countrymen. We all need grace.

My intense experience of God’s daily graces has opened my eyes to the real need for grace that is all around me, including my own. The grace of God is necessary to survive a chaotic world filled with sin. When it comes down to it, all we can say for ourselves is thank You for your grace. Everyone of us is in as desperate need of grace as those M-16 prisoners.

God’s grace is so expansive that He can even give grace for our missing His abundant grace in our lives. Bob Dylan asks the question “When you gonna wake up?” in his song about grace. Here are a few of the lines to this song that speaks to this reality.

Do you ever wonder just what God requires?
You think He’s just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up an’ strengthen the things that remain?
You can’t take it with you and you know it’s too worthless to be sold
They tell you ‘Time is money’ as if your life was worth its weight in gold
There’s a man on a cross and He been crucified for you
Believe in His power that’s about all you got to do

That’s just another way of saying: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

I hope you will wake up and experience the grace of God today and become amazed that He does that for you and for all of us. Who knows, maybe you will spontaneously show grace to others. It truly is amazing grace!