A Prayer About Grace Allergies
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” John 4:7-10
Lord Jesus, you spoke these astonishing words of hope to a broken woman trying her very best to keep her distance from you. She’d been on a sequential quest to find life in the arms of some man, many men, and it sure didn’t seem to be working for her. The more she tried to evade your gaze, the more you simply applied your grace. She ran, you pursued. She danced around, you moved in.
The details of my story are different from hers, but the same foolish inclination is there-playing games with you-playing hide and seek, only I do all the hiding and you do all the seeking.
Deliver me, and deliver a whole bunch of my friends, from living a life allergic to your grace. How insane is that? Grace is for sinners, not for pretenders and performers. You never mean to harm us, only to heal us. You’re not about embarrassing us, but embracing us. The better we know you, the quicker we will move into the life rhythms of honesty, convictability, repent-ability, vulnerability, transparency, humility and joy-7 really good gospel gifts.
So I bring my real thirst to you today, Jesus. I bring my penchant to avoid you. I bring my grace allergies to you. In light of what I’ve already discovered to be wondrously true about you, I ask you for a fresh supply of the water, the living water, you alone can give. May this be a day in which I can join the chorus of others whose heart know this song: “Come see the man who told me everything I ever did, and he STILL loves me and is bent on my freedom. Certainly this is the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord… He is Jesus!” So very Amen, I pray in your loving name.