A Pretty Good Day in God's Mercy

One of the coolest things that has happened to me recently was that I received an advanced reader's copy of Gary Thomas' new book The Beautiful Fight a couple of months ago. People that know me well will get a good chuckle out of that because in no sense have I ever been considered an advanced reader. At best I am a plodder, and I always have been. I have tremendous retention, but pitiful speed. Therefore it was quite a shock when this advance reader copy came to me from Zondervan. But, since Gary Thomas is one of my favorite contemporary authors, I was thrilled. And now, three months later, I am six chapters into it (I told you I'm slow!), and I am even more thrilled. It is excellent spiritual nourishment, and I highly recommend it to supplement your devotional reading. I'd like to share briefly about one thought from the book that has been recirculating in my heart this week.

If you have been keeping up with us, through this blog or in real live conversation, you know that these past few weeks and months have been somewhat of a valley, not in the sense that we are in the depths of despair, but very much in the Biblical sense of being in a transitional place where God leads you through on the way to somewhere else. We know God is leading us in this time, yet the terrain seems somewhat treacherous. When I was discussing this with a friend who has also been through some treacherous valleys, I remarked that there must be some sort of "Valley Theology" that could be developed from Scripture. We both agreed that the Psalms would be a good place to develop such a theology, and he even e-mailed me an excellent musical adaptation of Psalm 134 that he wrote after he went through his valley.

But I think that if I were to develop a "Valley Theology", I would start not with the Psalms, but with the Gospel. This thought occurred to me last week as I read the following passage from The Beautiful Fight (pp. 57-58):

"Pastor Randy and Janet Murphy offered a moving account of God's grace and healing in their marriage, and in the midst of their story, they recounted the words of a counselor who reminded them that, apart from Christ's we all deserve hell. Not off in the future, but right now, at this very moment, we've all qualified for eternal judgment.
"'So if it's true that we all deserve hell,' Randy's counselor had said, 'then isn't it also true that anything less than that is a pretty good day?'"

It really struck me then that the Gospel is good news, not just for the conversion of the sinner, but for every day of the converted life of a Christian. While I can mine the Psalms for strength from God's incomparable attributes while I am walking through the valley, I must always do so in the light of God's eternal grace displayed in the gospel.

So, last week when I got rejected from the umpteenth employer for yet another different reason, I could frame that in comparison to what I really deserve. And since I didn't get what I really deserve, it was a pretty good day! Now, almost a week later and facing the holiday lull, I still don't have a job, and we haven't quite sorted out all of the details of our immediate future, but considering what I deserve, today was a pretty good day too.

This is not head-in-the-sand denial. Far from it. This is gospel-centered reality, and it really helps us to frame the rest of our 'Light and momentary' trials accordingly. So, how was your day?

Soli Deo Gloria