Article by:
Rev. Kelcey A. West, MDIV
As a small child, I would travel with my family almost 3 hours from Pontiac to Flint, Michigan to go to a restaurant called Duff’s Original Buffet. And because I was foreign to a buffet style restaurant, I had to learn how not to put more on my plate than I could eat. That life lesson was consistently reinforced by my parents and grandparents who never hesitated to remind me as to why I should never let good food go to waste.
That simple, yet strategic and spiritual lesson has guided me in life especially it pertains to things of God seeing how we tend to seek Him for more grace than we really need and/or plan to use for his glory. Let us therefore take a moment to consider how much for productive and powerful, we would be if stop (for whatever reason) letting “good grace” go to waste seeing how the Lord once told the Apostle Paul that his grace was sufficient for thee.
How much more productive, and powerful could we be if we embraced and exhibited God’s grace to Cultivate a Culture of Celebration seeing how not only Mark Twain once said, “I can live two months on a good compliment, but how Proverbs 18:21 teaches us that ‘life and death is in the power of the tongue.’” Contrary to popular belief, the gift of grace gives us the ability and assurance to rejoice in the Lord always.
How much more passionate and peaceful could we be if we explored and experienced God’s grace to Paint a Self-Portrait of Perseverance that might encourage the next generation to understand why Dr. Martin Luther Jr. once said, “If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do (pause) you have to keep moving forward.” This is a great time for us to paint with colors that will allow us to tell the story of how not only our ancestors made it over, but how we crossed our Red Seas, conquered our Dens of Lions, and calmed our most violent storms of life.
How much more prolific and prophetic could we be if we embodied and executed God’s grace to Activate an Attitude of Advancement?
In reflecting on my childhood to conclude this article as I did in my introduction, I am reminded of how I loved to play with the other children during recess. Regardless of how the other kids may have treated me during our class time, I practiced and possibly perfected how to allow grace to lead me to push my friend and my enemies on the swings so that they could go as high as they wanted to go.
If by chance you believe in the power of imagining, please take a moment to imagine how amazing the atmosphere within our communities would be if grace was our primary and secondary weapon of choice. Can you imagine how many crabs could escape the barrel, if we would use grace (and not our claws) to push, promote and propel each other to fulfill God’s will for our lives? If you can imagine such a day, please join me in praying for the manifestation of 2 Peter 1:2, which states – “May the grace and peace of God be yours in abundance though the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”