Dear Rose Park,
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2: 8-9
A week or so ago, Hank Sybesma dropped off 400 golf balls in my office. Apparently, when Hank and Lynne winter down to Florida, Hank picks up golf balls on his morning walk. Hank doesn’t play golf, so he thought I’d like them. Whether Hank knows it or not, these 400 golf balls are a physical reminder of God’s grace for me.
When I play golf it’s quite rare to hear me say, “that was a good one, I’ll definitely find it in the fairway.” More often than not, you’ll hear me say something like, “I think it opens up over there” or “Oh boy, let’s see if I can find that one” or even worse “don’t bother looking, that one is long gone in the woods.” In those moments, you reach into your golf bag and grab another ball. These 400 golf balls will come in handy when I need to tee another ball up and swing again.
Similarly, this reminds me of God’s grace. We say something we shouldn’t, we do something regrettable, we avoid an opportunity to help, or we turn our back on God but we promise we’ll never do it again. A few days go by and we find ourselves in the exact same situation again. We naturally wander back to our sins only to repeat the entire process. In those moments, I am eternally grateful for God’s grace and I stand in awe of a God who sees all our mistakes and failures and yet still chooses to love us and be in a relationship with us.
This doesn’t mean we should abuse God’s grace or treat God as some safety-net in our back pocket. Instead, because of God’s tremendous and unconditional grace we should commit ourselves to a life of gratitude back to God. We can display this kind of gratitude in the way we faithfully worship within His Church, point others towards God’s grace and forgiveness, and serve His Kingdom with all our full lives.
Here at Rose Park, we desire to connect, empower, and reconcile. The only way we can do that faithfully is when we first embrace God’s tremendous grace for us. If we don’t then ministry has a tendency to turn into a legal system filled with rules and consequences. These 400 golf balls are an echo of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and they are a visible reminder of God’s invisible grace.
Grace & Peace,
