I’ve taken common grace for granted. I’ve let it become ordinary, expected and impersonal.
But today, I’m reminded that common grace is personal. It’s personal because it’s happening to me, personally, and given from God, who knows me and loves me.
It’s easy for me to make His common grace seem cheap because it’s happening to everybody. For instance, the sun is warming my feet through the window as I type and when I look outside it’s like my eyeballs are having an inner itch scratched. The same thing might be happening to thousands of other people in my state alone. And His common grace is particular for a thousand people in a thousand different ways.
The commonality doesn’t lessen the expression of love that the sun is for me from Him. It’s still personal. Why? Because He’s making my toes warm. He knows they’re cold. He’s scratching my inner eyeball itch with the bright sunshine. He knows my eyeballs like bright light.
And when a storm comes and scares me witless, it’s a personal storm with a message of trust and repentance for me. Because He knows my sin and my need to trust. The fact that He is doing something the same or different for everyone else with a common experience doesn’t change His acting in my life with particular purposes and grace.
Common grace is common, but it isn’t ordinary. It’s common, but it isn’t impersonal.
And let me say this. It’s personal, but it doesn’t revolve around me. God acting particularly to effect me, doesn’t make me the center of the universe. He is. He’s doing it for a million people in a million ways because He is glorious, not because we are.
So here’s His common grace for me today. This is the view from here. What does His common grace look like at your house today?
Like I said earlier, it was the breeze from my window blowing on my face as I read in a quiet house this afternoon.
I find that trying to express thankfulness to God aloud to my kids has made me more aware of many common graces that have been so ordinary for so long.
I say aloud, so my Alaina and Emmy can hear, “God, thank you for swings so we can have so much fun and for comfy beds so we can sleep so well.”
Thanks Lynette! Very true!
I love this, Abigail! Thanks!
This autumn I am particularly enjoying the beauty of driving through our shady development. The trees seem more colorful and bright than they ever have before. And every time I leave the driveway, I think of God’s glory…