Evidence of God in the every day Day 5

This week on the blog I have been sharing a little series I entitled “Evidence of God in the every day”…not the greatest title I have ever developed but life is short and that was the best I could do. 

Today I want to wrap it up with the evidence of God in the way we see lives transformed. I can start with me. I cannot remember a time I didn’t know of and love Jesus. But I can remember years and years when I didn’t understand that I couldn’t earn His love. It took way longer than it should have for someone with all the early exposure to Him to realize that it wasn’t my goodness that saved me nor my mistakes that canceled the deal. As I look back, I can mark the difference my understanding Grace made in transforming me. 

All the years I thought we were keeping a scorecard in heaven I road a roller coaster of trying to be good and falling from grace and working even harder until one day the odds seemed impossibly against me ever living long enough to do enough good to make up for my transgressions. But God broke through in the words of our pastor to me in the hallway of an old church building when he said…Laura, you don’t understand GRACE. That evening began a journey away from works based faith and I marvel time and again at the transformation God continues to work in me since that day. I am a work in progress but God has already told me the it won’t be finished until I stand before Him, proclaimed faultless and redeemed by the Blood of His Son. 

I can add the testimony of my own mom who also was raised and lived by that scorecard until her 80’s.  Jesus met her in a completely broken state of physical exhaustion. We thought we would lose her she was so depleted, but she lived five more years. And I mean, for the first time in her life, my mom really lived. She was different. Oh she still said things in public that would make you cringe and hope bypassers hadn’t heard her. But she was transformed. The ways she reacted to things, the way she was at peace; her lack of using guilt to motivate me to act, the way she treated others. Our whole family would sometimes shake our head and ask each other who this new woman was. Evidence of God that gave me five years of relationship that has allowed this daughter to actually miss her mom in her every day life, even at sixty plus. 

Then there are others I have never met but whose changed lives have impacted others. The other night I was working on some things around the house while Russ was watching some documentary show about a golfer. I thought they were saying the name Paine Stewart, but the pictures of the young golfer and stories of his behavior were not matching up with what I thought I knew of him. As I would move in and out of the room at one point I heard someone sharing about how Paine had encountered Jesus. I heard mention of a WWJD bracelet and then I heard story after story of a transformed life. At one point they were talking about his reaction to a bitter loss and facing reporters . The friend who was being interviewed choked out words regarding the change in his temperament and the transformation that had taken place in him because of his faith. 

People we know, people we hear about, people who can attest to the transformation of a. life. These stories should give us evidence that God is who He says He is and does what He says He will do. He changes hearts. And the stories are the testimonies that are the evidence of God in our every day lives <3 

Share your stories of redemption and transformation. Celebrate the God who authored them <3

You are deeply loved, 

Laura <3