Puddles of Grace
Sharon W. Betters
TODAY’S TREASURE
Just ask the previous generation. Pay attention to the experience of our ancestors. For we were born but yesterday and know nothing. Our days on earth are as fleeting as a shadow. But those who came before us will teach you. They will teach you the wisdom of old (Job 8:8-10, NLT).
Mention Job, and even those unfamiliar with the Bible, immediately know that you’re talking about someone who lost everything. One of Job’s friends, Bildad, the Shuhite, tried to comfort him by exhorting him to ask those who had come before him for wisdom. Though Bildad’s theology is skewed, there is great advice in this passage. Those who are ahead of us in life’s journey can teach us much about how to build structures into our lives that can become an automatic default system when life makes it hard to think straight. Some of those puddles of grace encourage us to avoid making the same mistakes our predecessors made.
We’ve established that acknowledging we are on a pilgrimage, on our way Home, fuels our journey with hope when life stinks. It follows that if I know I am traveling through a foreign land and the journey will be long and difficult, I would be wise to talk to people ahead of me on that journey. What helped them, and what is helping them to not just endure but to find joy and peace in dark places? What supplies did they pack, and what do they wish they had packed? What mistakes did they make?
This is not as hard as it might first appear. Every time you attend a Bible study, listen to a sermon or listen as other people share their life experiences, you have the opportunity to learn from those ahead of you in life. When we are intentional about putting into place the disciplines of walking by faith, we discover we are better prepared for the hard places in our journey than we realized. That’s when those puddles of grace, left by those who came before us, help equip, energize and encourage us to keep on keeping on.
LIFE-GIVING ENCOURAGEMENT
Be intentional about establishing disciplines of grace in your life when the “sun is shining.”
Decide if God’s Word truly is the grid through which you will push all of life. Include personal and group Bible study that teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains you in the righteousness of God as part of forming that life grid.
Identify godly people ahead of you in life’s journey that can help equip you for the pathway God has marked out for you. These people might no longer live on this earth, but their writings still exist and are rich with life lessons. As a young woman, I turned to Elisabeth Elliot and Amy Carmichael as long-distance spiritual mothers, soaking up their life stories and how God’s grace equipped and enabled them to endure when quitting might have seemed easier. These women have left “puddles of grace” for generations to come. Drink deeply from their lives, and hope will fuel your pilgrimage Home.
More free resources for help, hope & healing:
Treasures of Encouragement, Women Helping Women
By Sharon W. Betters
Treasuresofencouragement.org Learn how God sends treasures of encouragement to help turn hearts toward Jesus and how the beauty, privilege, and power of biblical encouragement is a means to invite others to trust the Lord’s goodness and faithfulness in the mundane moments and especially in the broken places of life. Free supplemental resources.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sharon W. Betters is a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, pastor’s wife, and cofounder of MARKINC Ministries, where she is the Director of Resource Development. Sharon is the author of several books, including Treasures of Encouragement, Treasures in Darkness, and co-author with Susan Hunt of Aging with Grace. She is the co-host of the Help & Hope podcast and writes Daily Treasure, an online devotional.
For more from Daily Treasure please visit MARKINC.ORG.
Originally published Thursday, 05 January 2023.
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