grace upon grace

Just got back from 5 days in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. We took 39 people (27 high school students and 5 junior high students) to serve at City Impact. Basically we spent the week caring for the physical and spiritual needs of the homeless, poor, and hurting in the inner-city.

The challenge for me this year is encapsulated in the words of Dallas Willard (I believe from The Divine Conspiracy), that "we can offer anybody a blessed life with God today." Paraphrased from a year or more of meditation, these words express the challenge of communicating the hope that I have experienced in living under the healing, power, and rule of Jesus. Specifically the last three years have been a journey of grace (the power of God to be able to do what I can not do on my own) where the lingering sin of worry and anger have been brought under the covering of Jesus' work (the cross, resurrection, and ascension). I see now that there is hope for all of me through the broken power of sin (the work of the cross), the power for a new life (the work of the resurrection), and the authority to bring this new life to others (the work of the ascension).

I am certain that one can have a blessed life with God, I know that through the process of my life I have come to experience. What I struggle to trust is that anyone can have it TODAY.

My thoughts go to a young woman (26, who looked 40+) I met on the street named Rachel. It was nearly 10:00pm as we walked down Jones, and as I was approached by a drunk for money, she cried out kneeling on the street for prayer. This was unique in my experience this last week since it was normally me asking to pray for others. Her cry was muffled by weakness, but clearly desperate and true. I looked her in the eye and the words "a blessed life with God today" came to mind. She then began whispering her plight. I had to kneel on the ground and lean in to hear her. She spoke of an addiction to heroine and crack and how she had been comfortable destroying her own life, but now she was pregnant. She wanted freedom and help from God. All I could offer was prayer. My friend Kirk joined my kneeling on the street, and we prayed together. How can she have a blessed life with God in the next couple hours of this day? My prayers were passionate, desperate, and tear-filled as I knew her cries had been. I offered her the hope of breakfast tomorrow and the assistance of Chaplain Earl (who has helped many break their addictions). We left, longing for her to be protected, and longing to see her the following morning. The morning came, but she did not.

I do not know where Rachel is tonight. I may never know. But I will continue to pray.

The only consolation I had for my heart were the words I read the next morning from John 1:16: And from (Jesus') fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The life of Christ has forever altered history (the way we count history reflects a small piece of that), and we continue to receive from him all the fullness of his life. The fullness of his life is the ability to do what we cannot do on our own, grace upon grace. If history turns on Jesus, so can my history, or any person's history.

I will carry this week with me. I will carry with me a continued commitment to the process of grace in my life. I will carry with me Rachel who needs this grace today.