While living overseas there were many times when I listened to scripture read in a language where I had minimal understanding. It was always a good exercise – scripture that was familiar to me in English became new and fresh, affecting me in ways I couldn’t anticipate.

It was this that I remembered as I recently read the words to Matthew 11, verses 28 to 30 in The Message. I don’t traditionally read The Message, a paraphrased version of the Bible, but as I heard these verses it was like hearing them in a language I was unfamiliar with, a language that I had to pay attention to and think about, a language that offered me the familiar in a dramatically different way.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

And that was it – I was tired and burned out, I needed to recover my life, I needed to watch how Jesus did it. I needed to find out what the “unforced rhythms of grace” were and what living this way looked like. My life had become a cliché of do’s and don’ts; must do’s and should do’s; regrets and wishful thinking.

Unforced Rhythms of Grace – How can I discover them? I want my senses to be alive to the rhythms of grace. How could I begin? Perhaps beginning was as simple as beginning to record grace in action. When we record, we remember. That’s what One Thousand Gifts is all about.

So I began.  Here are a few of my recent unforced rhythms of grace, recorded so I’ll remember:

• Waiting at the subway station and having a guitar player strum “How Great Thou Art” with skilled hands
• Hearing that my son has found a job
• Curling up in a warm house with fresh-baked oatmeal bread, blackberry jam spread over it, reading
• Learning to read words of truth, not to dissect or study, but to soak in and remember….

And this is just the beginning.

How do you learn the unforced rhythms of grace? Would love to hear in the comment section.

Related articles

• Invited to Rest (communicatingacrossboundariesblog.com)
• Don’t Get Too Close (livingingraceland.wordpress.com)