This summer I am trying to work through books in the Bible that I never fully grasped, those that (simply said) are blank, underline-less, circle-less, and more apparently, note-less, in my Bible. The books that ruin me and convict me and speak to me look like I took class notes all in the margins. The book of Daniel though, stood like an empty canvas. Waiting for God to teach me things, tell me things, open my eyes up, and show me more of His heart.
And that He did.
My 1AM bible study realization (which are becoming quite frequent these summer nights) is that sometimes you don't get it right on the first try. Sometimes your humanity sucks you up and your flesh rules you instead of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, unfortunately, you don't listen, sometimes you go back to old, comfortable, familiar ways, sometimes you forget convictions, sometimes you choose the easy route. Sometimes, as humans, we screw up. But it doesn't mean God runs out of giving you chances. This is the thing I never really can grasp in my faith.
I can't grasp it because it isn't like me. It is so counter-cultural, it makes no sense to the world, and sometimes when I dissent it, it makes no sense to me either (ha). When people in my life suck the life out of me, when I feel like I am giving someone a million chances and things never change, my inclination is to just let that relationship go. And selfishly, life is easier without those people.
But grace means holding on.
And God holds on.
Through the first six chapters of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar is the prime example of God's grace and divine mercy. Grace and mercy that don't just end when God 'feels like it.' God holds on to Him, but God doesn't make it an easy road when Nebuchadnezzar chose his flesh instead of choosing God.
Nebuchadnezzar's life makes it almost painfully clear that God gives us chances. But His life also shows that the chances may become more painful, the trials may be harder, the refining to get you to be like gold may be rougher, but He doesn't stop with his mercy and grace just because you go back to old ways. He gives chances. He gives a way back to living in Him, He gives a way back to His throne.
God gives chances.
I love that one of the most powerful and unique things about God is that He doesn't give up. We humans throw in the towel when giving out grace drains us, but then there's God's ways. God finds satisfaction in the fact that in the end, all the glory is His. He gives out grace and in the end, His grace shouts from our lives. All the glory is His in the end, because He gives us something that we can't do ourselves, that we can't give ourselves, that we as humans, simply cannot do like He can.
