The Prevenient Way

way: how someone or something does something

I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14: 6

The words of John keep flowing through my thoughts…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1: 1 and 14

This is the way God is going to save us?  This is the thing the prophets foretold?  Those after the time of prophecy had spent years trying to figure it out.  The way God would redeem…but none…not one I know of considered this. 

I held the sweet week old baby of a friend today.  I asked her, “Can you believe it?”  How does this happen?  Ten months ago nothing and now...a life right here in my hands.  The miracle of a baby never ceases to amaze me…to remind me that this is how God chose to save the world.

There in the blue eyes and chubby cheeks resides the message of prevenient grace. Prevenient grace describes the grace God uses to draw us to Himself.  From the very moment we are born God loves us.  He covers us with grace even though we have no way of responding or even understanding.  Babies bring that out in us…an unconditional love.  We stir up this same kind of love from God when he looks upon our faces.

I wonder if all those who held the holy child felt the same way.  Did they look into the tiny face and recognize that good deeds and knowing the right things…behaving a certain way…could not bring about this miracle?  This way…God coming as an infant…keeps me grounded in the knowledge that there is nothing…not one thing…that I can do to save myself. 

Tomorrow marks the second Sunday in Advent.  The word for the day is love.  Love came down in the still of a night, from the virgin’s womb.  Love all warm and wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a feed trough.  Love clothed in fresh skin and baby smell. 

Love given not because of what we are…but because of whose we are.

Father, thank you for the miracle of life.  Help me to journey through this season reminded that you made a way for me…not because of who I am…but because of whose I am.  Amen

Stacy