MARIA CURREY | CONTRIBUTOR

“If only one more page, one more encounter, one more embrace,” your heart moans. When you find someone or something engaging, what is it that makes you want more? Maybe it is their compelling and charismatic personality? It might be a book or movie which grips your attention—when no matter how many other tasks beckon for your attention, you cannot help but turn the pages or watch it through to the credits, and you feel like a best friend moved away when it ends.

The characters linger, the impression of that special person remains long after bidding farewell.

In sharp contrast, we often find ourselves in a culture of criticism, cruelty, cancelling, and cut-throat competition, so, how do we take the myriad tensions and reconcile them with our Christian calling? How do we engage culture with wisdom and grace?

Bury your head in the uncountable sands of Scripture and wait for Jesus to return? As comfortingly cocooned as such an action-plan may be, the losses would be countlessly grievous—both to our hearts and to a lost swath of culture needing and waiting for Jesus’ winsome love.

What if you and I are the pivotal story of Jesus to be watched and read for those who are eternally lost? What if the Holy Spirit has a special assignment for the pages of your life to be the unfolding of wisdom and grace? God’s gifts perfectly crafted through your uniquely designed life. Remember the Psalm 139 promises that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made;” the images of His handiwork are the wisdom and grace of God in you!

Why are wisdom and grace critical hooks in our life stories?

Wisdom of the Word looks, sounds, and acts differently than the world. When worn with grace, God’s wisdom is winsome, warm, and welcoming.

James 1:5 tells us to ask for wisdom, and it is given as the wardrobe of our living story in James 3:17. The “wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” Wisdom clothes the Christian protagonist in hard life-scenes, coming against the ultimate antagonists in Satan and his minions.

Grace is God’s undeserved favor, a wrapping of His merciful compassion and forgiveness over every breath we take when sealed by Christ’s covenant love.

And yet, the battle between our worldly sinful nature and our redeemed soul rages on and is won only through purposefully praying and remaining tethered to God’s Word, and then living out the evidence of God’s Presence in relationships which roll off the reel of His truth, again in His disarming wisdom and grace.

How is the antagonist depleted of power? Romans 12:20-21 writes our way forward, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” The script for our life story is to walk in the way of God’s Word with authentic care—to engage the hard-hearted and hard-headed with what we know and trust as truth. Baffle culture with blatant truth worn in soft answers and graceful actions.

Walking life scenes in my own power makes me vulnerable to enemies within modern culture. However, in God’s power manifested through prayer—both in solitude and with others—and in the wonder of His Word, the agility to navigate culture and nurture meaningful relationships is vibrantly possible.

Considering the wisdom we wear, prayerfully ponder the following questions:

• If a description of how you engage people were written, what words would characterize you? Would wisdom and grace make an impressionable appearance?
• If prayer and lingering in God’s Word is limited or less-than-prioritized for you, how and when could you intentionally increase time to seek the fullness of God’s grace and the width of His wisdom?
• What are some creative ways you could pray for God to expand your own story to engage your culture and community in His wondrous wisdom and grace? Write your prayers and look for God’s answers to further increase your story!

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash