I baked bread yesterday. I milled my grain, used a digital scale my brother bought me for my birthday, and converted everything from ounces to grams. It was a disaster. I’m not sure where I erred but one loaf looks like it’s trying to throw up and the other like a sagging hotdog. On the upside, both still taste delicious and are unbeatably fresh. Even in the worst scenarios you can’t outshine bread out of the oven.

This freshness is what I’m hoping for in these monthly Cultivate devotionals. Some monthly offerings might be better than others, but at least each one will be newly milled grains of thoughts I’m pondering, questions I’m chewing on, truths I’m thinking about. This month, I’ve been considering grace. I’m a dyed-in-the wool do-gooder whose core fear is being morally corrupt (according to Enneagram #1 wisdom). This doesn’t mean I am good, or even that I do good when I’m supposed to, it just means that checking religious boxes tends to feel good to me. I rather like earning things.

This has risen to the forefront of my awareness in recent weeks. I’m in a peaceful season without major business upheavals due to pandemics. My home is calm in the absence of a 14-month renovation that was supposed to be 6, but who’s keeping track. I’ve had a lot more time to be still with the Lord. And I’ve been feeling a tinge of guilt. Or maybe a sense of not pushing myself hard enough. It seems the more time I have in God’s presence, unharried and unhurried, the more I realize how easy it is to substitute busyness for godliness. Being busy for God makes me feel like a better Christian. In this quieter season, this distorted thinking has become more obvious to me.

This is where grace comes in.

I don’t know how you grew up but I was raised in a Christian environment where the term grace was deeply associated with salvation. To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, a person is saved by grace through faith, not from any works we add to the mix, it’s a free gift from God that none of us can take any credit for (Eph. 2:8-9). My whole life is founded upon this truth. The problem for me—and maybe for you—is that we tend to confine grace to that single aspect of our future lives. Grace is for salvation when you die but it’s kind of up to us to figure it out until then, or so the thinking goes. But when we follow the concept of grace throughout the New Testament we also see that another major function of grace is to compel us toward good works now, it’s to change our hearts now, it’s to fuel us to Christlikeness now. Being busy doesn’t accomplish this for us, being dependent on God’s grace does.

Take in these words from Dallas Willard: “We consume the most grace by leading a holy life, in which we must be constantly upheld by grace, not by continuing to sin and being repeatedly forgiven. The interpretation of grace as having only to do with guilt is utterly false to biblical teaching and renders spiritual life in Christ unintelligible.” In other words, we tend to think that the people who need the most grace are the ones who keep messing up, who keep draining God’s forgiveness. But in some ways it’s the polar opposite of this. As Dallas points out, those who look the most like Jesus on the inside and outside are actually the ones consuming the most grace because holiness runs on grace. Earlier I referenced Ephesians 2:8-9. Now consider verse 10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.” Notice the good works God has for us to do are based on the grace Paul begins talking about in verses 5-9.

If I can sum up my thoughts for you it’s this: Busyness doesn’t equal godliness. Yes, we as Christ-followers should be passionate about good, concrete actions of love for others—Paul says we were created for this. But as you work steadily for the Lord (at work, in your home, running carpool and errands) be sure you’re being fueled by grace simply because we can’t fuel our own holiness. And if you find yourself in a quieter season like myself, don’t believe the lie that being busy will make you a better Christian. It will only make you a busier Christian. So let His grace fill you and fuel you in times of quiet. Because we know how this goes. The crazy seasons are usually just around the corner. And we’ll need all the grace we can get.

Happy First Day of September! I love this month because it’s the back-to-routine month where we settle into the swing of rhythms. Some of my favorite times of the year lay close ahead: turning leaves, football, deep bowls of chili, turkeys on our tables, and eventually the Christmas season… but we won’t get ahead of ourselves. We’ll enjoy the present moment (but did you see how I slipped in the word present?).

As I promised, this monthly devotional will be a fresh slice of whatever is on my heart. So here goes…

Have you ever wondered if God is really good? Our belief about God’s nature has a dramatic effect on our prayer lives. I’ve been reflecting on this and hope you’ll reflect with me. Consider what Jesus says about prayer in Matthew 7:7-8: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” In some ways this is the “how” of prayer, but I’ve recently realized how closely it’s tied to the “who” of prayer. In other words, when Jesus tells us to approach our heavenly Father by asking, seeking, and knocking, He grounds this instruction in the good nature of God. He does this through a short parable:

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:9-11). What is Jesus revealing about our heavenly Father here? That He can be trusted. That He delights to give to His children. Most importantly, that He is good!

Why is Jesus going out of His way to reveal to us that His Father is good? I think for at least two reasons. Perhaps the first is that given our broken world, the hardship, injustices, and trials we face, Jesus knew we would be prone to think that God is precisely not good. The people listening to Him tell this story were under Roman oppression themselves, many struggling to have their basic needs met. Sometimes when we go through pain and darkness God’s goodness isn’t always obvious to us. I wonder what might be causing you to question God’s goodness right now? No matter what you’re going through Jesus says, I promise you, God’s good. Don’t stop trusting Him.

I think the second reason Jesus tells us about God’s good nature is because He knows how much this affects our prayer life. Why would we ask, seek, or knock in pursuit of someone who is not good? I think about the relationship I have with my young nieces and nephews. They ask me for ice cream and movies, seek me out when I’m in the other room, knock on my front door. They pursue me in these ways because they believe I will give to them, be found by them, and open the door for their little personalities. They wouldn’t do this if they didn’t trust me, were afraid of me, or didn’t believe me to be good. And when I have to tell them “no,” or when I correct them, they trust my heart (even if they also complain because we’re pretty human at my house).

Whether you have a pretty fabulous aunt or a mom or dad who gives you good gifts, Jesus says, “how much more” does your heavenly Father delight to give you good things? Something I recently discovered about Matthew is that he refers to God as Father 44 times in his gospel! The personal nature of God is a huge theme for him. Interestingly, it was uncommon in ancient Jewish culture for God to be referred to as our Father (Abba or Daddy). While the idea became more common during Second Temple Judaism, Jesus sheds new light on this truth and reality. He clearly wants us to understand what a good, trustworthy, and personally-involved Father we have (see Matt. 6:5-8 and 7:7-11).

So here’s my encouragement to you: When you can’t make sense of what you or a loved one is going through, when you’ve asked and nothing seems to be happening, when your heart is broken, keep pursuing your Father in prayer because His nature is good. Ask, seek, and knock, not because you’re trying to wrangle something from His hands but because this is your privilege as His child. And when you doubt God’s goodness, tell Him. A good Father will understand.