Summer Fun

 As it nears the end of summer a recurring question keeps appearing at our house:  did we do enough fun things during the summer?  It does not always seem to matter that we have not had only one free weekend where we had nothing going on, it always seems like we could have done more.  

I think sometimes that we look at our Christian life this way too.  No matter how much we do - no matter how much we read the Bible, or pray or serve we are always seemingly looking to answer the question, "Was it enough?"  This is not how grace works and reveals a fundamental flaw to our understanding of our relationship with God.  There can be no question of if it is enough unless the works that we do actually do something in our relationship with God.  And they cannot.  Because the work of Christ has already been done and it is sufficient.  Therefore our works are done not out of a sense of obligation but in gratitude.  In that sense the question, "Am I grateful enough?" would be a valid one.  There are times I know I am living out of step with the Spirit of God and it can boil down to a lack of gratitude for what Christ has accomplished for me.  But gratitude that is measured is also not true gratitude.  This is of course not to say that the things we do are meaningless and do not matter at all.  That is not at all true.  Nor is it to say that we should not strive to read our Bibles, pray, serve etc.  We should.  But what we should stop doing is preaching grace but practicing a works based way of living.  What we should do is start to be willing to trust in the grace shown us by God Himself and realize that if He can show us grace, perhaps we should stop asking the question that measures these things according to a standard that He says we have already completed in Christ!