Living Grace: More Than a Prayer, A Way of Life
Understanding Grace Through Everyday Moments and Profound Transformations
Welcome to today’s reflection. A quiet moment to breathe, pause and think about the love of God.
A few years ago, my wife Rachel found this small picture in a shop near where we lived. It wasn’t from a Christian bookshop, just part of a collection of framed quotes. You know the kind, some witty, some deep, some baffling. This one caught her attention. We thought it was brilliant, and it now hangs on our dining room wall, making me pause and reflect each time I see it.
As a child, grace was something we said before meals, a ritual enforced by my mum. My two younger brothers and I would take turns, always competing to say the shortest prayer possible so we could get to our food. My little brother won every time with a rapid-fire: “Thank you, Lord, for food, amen.” He could say it in under a second on good days!
Since then, I have come to realise that grace, as that little picture reminds me, is much more than a pre-meal tradition, church teaching or a way of saying thank you. It’s a transformative force, a gift that runs deeper than words and can make us more uncomfortable than we would care to admit.