Disciplined grace

The writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer challenge me greatly.  The Cost of Discipleship is a wonderful reminder of the need for personal interaction with the free gift of God's grace.  Grace is neither cheap nor free.  "The grace of God is unearned and unearnable, but if we ever expect to grow in grace, we must pay the
price of a consciously chosen course of action which involves both individual and group life."

Avoiding the pitfalls of antinomianism and moralism is not easy.  Too much effort or too little will most definitely sink our collective ships.  Making it to the "virtue is easy" point, is, for many of us, the holy grail of spirituality.  It is the goal of what we seek, but it can never be the goal if we are to find it.  "Virtue is easy" only happens when we allow God to work in us and through us.  Only then can virtue become "easy."  The harder we try; the farther we are from our goal.

The mystery is not that spiritual discipline can exist but that it does.  Extraordinary people all over the planet know God in deep and meaningful ways.  They are high and lifted up not by their effort, good looks, charming ways, endless funds, or birth rite.  They are lifted up because they have humbled themselves.  They have conquered their demons because they found they could not defeat them.  They have gone where angels dare not tread even though they do not know the way.  They are extraordinary even though they know there is nothing special about them.  The are extraordinary, different, strange, excentric, and weird because they know the truth.

The truth-"Let go and let God."  Simple yet profound.

I think I'm going to let go of something today.