Along the side of the pavement at Chinese Garden MRT I saw this slope of tiles leading to the grated drain. Along its joints and grout I saw fine and green grasses sprouting out towards the sky. It caught my attention for a while and I stood there to wonder what the Lord has for me there. Nothing came to mind. I then took a picture of it with the intention of going back to ponder over it. God speaks to us through so many ways and one of them is through what we see.
A week or two later, I looked at the image as I would look at a text, and let myself be drawn to a particular aspect of it, allowing what resonated to speak to me its message. I looked at different parts of the picture slowly and found myself drawn to the green, light grasses sprouting from the tightest of spaces. I thought about how God’s grace and life are somehow able to find a way to express itself through my life in spite of all my weakness and imperfections, and my inattentiveness to him. God’s life finds a way somehow. And I am most grateful for such expressions of his life through mine.
I was such a shy, reserved and insecure teenager when the Lord rescued me. He put his life in me when I repented and believed in Jesus Christ. How that seed, that life found a way to express itself through me in the tightest of spaces is amazing. I cannot even speak and am socially awkward and yet I was slowly transformed into a speaker, a teacher of God’s ways, able to share his word with audiences big or small. He has also transformed me and made me more socially confident and able to easily relate to and befriend others.
God’s life always finds a way – even with the imperfect, limited material he has to work with. God’s life in us finds a way to express itself through us. Even if the space is tight and limited and not ideal. We saints are cracked pottery and have lots of imperfections. We are also ordinary clay jars not expensive rare ceramic or jade. However, we hold or contain a priceless amazing treasure, the Spirit of Jesus, a gift from the Father above (2 Cor 4:7). He is God’s seed, life, power and presence in us. He works in us to refine and fill our character with more of Christ. He empowers us with spiritual gifts and enablements that enhances what we already possess by nature or nurture, or where none was present at all. These graces and gifts are the expressions of his life through our ordinary life. It is expressed through us for God’s glory and for the benefit and blessing of others with whom we share these gifts and graces. We certainly ought to thank God for these expressions of life, however little or flimsy they may seem. Stop berating ourself but learn to give glory to God for all the little steps forward and the progress made thus far. Then we shall see even more of his life expressed through us.
How has God’s life found expressions in your life? Feel free to give glory to God by sharing with us in the comment box.
