I'll have a full bowl...

Have you ever been aware of the truth of the Word of God?  No I don't mean in a passing kind of way...(like) "Wow that's really cool I should think about this some more" "Has the word ever reached out and smacked you in the face? Has it ever spoken so clearly that you would not have been surprised if the writer was sitting across the table from you?... (like) "Ohhh... I need to repent"

Well once again I am aware that the Word is living and active... sharper than a two edged sword... 

Let's look at a verse i was just reading, It's found in Colossians 4:6 (NIV) 

"Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

Full of Grace? Really? Grace is the unmerited favour of God. Grace is offered to those who do not deserve it. Grace can only be received freely. No effort can earn grace and grace needs to be freely distributed. First year bible school... got it! But do I really?

How often my voice is only seasoned with the salt of Grace. How often I speak harshly, factually, clearly but not graciously. Somehow my personal need to be correct, or to win overpowers the delicate and gentle need to be full of grace. How often my communication contains little grace as I carefully distribute it out as a precious commodity that should be saved and preserved, less we run out.

Wow! Did you catch what I just typed? I did not realize until after I typed it and I went back to the original verse to confirm. The verse does not say, seasoned with grace but rather full of Grace. FULL! not seasoned, not flavoured, not carefully added, but Full. Not a pinch but a pound. Not a spoon but a sea. Not a touch but a ton! How often I have distributed grace out like a salt shaker, a little shake here and a little shake there and the situation or the person I am dealing with will be fine. I could not have been more wrong.

The only other reference I can find to salt is the communication from Jesus where He said in Matthew 5:13  “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot." You are the salt of the earth... We are the salt... not grace. 

So hearing this statement again, It appears that our interactions with those around us should be full of grace and seasoned with us. How often our communication is full of us and seasoned with grace. I don't know about you but grace needs to be flowing out of my life in a fullness kind of way rather than the fullness that is flowing, the fullness of me.

Lord today, allow me to have the strength to communicate with a full measure of grace and a small measure of me. Lord remind me that I won't fear that I will run out of grace and not have any left for myself but rather that you Lord are the giver of grace and you have enough, even for me.  Oh I know, you may be thinking that that is not really the case, but speaking for my fears... it is true.
I remember back 25 years, to a bible school class, in front of an older Newfoundland preacher, where daily he would would repeat a phrase that at the time I saw little significance in and mostly ignored. Today, the words are ringing down across the years into a heart desperate for the truth they hold. What is the phrase he would say you might ask...? 

"Grace Flows Like a River." 
Dr. Graydon Giles...  
thank you sir.