success

{This is day three of a 31 day series, 31 Days of Daily Grace. Find all posts in this series here.}

 
“What do you do with the journal?” she asks, nibbling a bagel and looking at me with sleepy eyes. My two youngest daughters and I eat breakfast around the small table in our kitchen while I read the 12th chapter of the book of Acts, my current study.

“I write down a verse or two, whatever I find the most interesting in the chapter,” I reply. “For instance, it says here that Peter was in prison, bound in chains, with guards sleeping on both sides and more at the door. The night before Herod the king would have Peter killed, the angel of the Lord—do you think it was Jesus?—smote him on the side to wake him up and tell him to leave. Can you picture that? The angel whacks him awake? Then the chains fall off and he just walks out the door.”

Tired eyes open wide as the Word becomes real.

And then I read verses 21-23 to them:

And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them.

And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.

And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.

[I had a fast-motion Raiders of the Lost Ark-style mental image of Herod and the worms, but I kept that thought to myself . . .]

Now we talk about what it means to give God the glory and how that might look when you’re 9 or 11 years old, because clearly taking the credit for yourself doesn’t please God. I tell them about Tebowing and other ways people indicate that God is the source of their success.

This moment of grace—a sweet time of conversation and instruction—starts our day well.

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