His Gift

God has been doing some amazing things in my life the past few weeks/months.
And He has given me some very special tokens of His infinite and limitless love for me.
He has grown me in ways I'd always dreamed of but never thought possible for me.  He has taught me more about spirituality, about His character, about things of eternity and heaven in just a few short weeks than in my whole life prior.
For so long I struggled to earn salvation, to make things 'happen' on my own, often without realizing what I was doing. Some words that summarize my walk with God for many years are: unbelief. fear. guilt.
I had loads and loads of unbelief. I believed in God, I believed in His transforming power--just not in my life. I didn't believe there was very much hope for me... Hadn't I tried day after day, year after year, and nothing had changed?
I wish I could pin-point a time, a moment where it all fell together. But I can't. And I honestly think the story is just starting to be written. I am just now being awakened from the dead, and much is left to be learned, understood.

The simplicity of the things I have been taught so far (much of it stuff that I'd heard before, but it never really registered) has truly blown me away. It's so simple, God is still training me to stop trying to make it more complicated.
I have found so much freedom, I'm almost hesitant to accept it, it's so full and so abundant.
Each day I feel like my eyes have been opened for the first time, each day the beauty of what I have been given has to be grasped and I have to accept that it's true.
I have such a long way to go in my spiritual journey. Such a long way.
But God doesn't ask me to worry about that. He actually tells me not to worry.
Instead He only asks for my heart, one day at a time. He asks me to live each moment in submission, and to simply accept His gift of salvation, no earning required.
It might sound like I've arrived, like I live out the above sentence perfectly each day. But I don't. At this point I probably spend more time stumbling than standing. I'm like a babe just learning to walk! But if I hold His hand, even in the stumbling  He is glorified, He can cover me, His Righteousness makes God the Father see me walking tall and steadfast.
On my own I will never walk straight or without stumbling. On my own I can't even stand. And that's the beauty of it! Jesus gets all the glory! It's all His, anything good or noble or holy or godly.

I must accept the Gift, believe the Gift is mine, and never ever think I earned it! I can boast in nothing but the cross. The very second I begin to believe that somehow I deserve it, I earned it, or I made it happen, I fall from Grace, and there is no Gift. The gift is given when I see my filthy rags for what they are, and plead His merits.
My heart is so full of gratitude.