My experience with grace has been a long and growing journey. Grace is when we do get what we don't deserve. God's grace begins at salvation and then continually flows to us once we know him as our Savior and Lord (Romans 10:9-10) and then we maintain an ongoing fellowship relationship with Him (1 John 1:7).
In the fifty years of my working life, I have had five very different "assignments." Each of these positions has been an expression of God's grace in my life. Why? Because I was not fully prepared for any of them.
Not having the knowledge or the experience for these jobs meant that I had to rely completely on the Holy Spirit for His guidance and direction. It also meant that I could accept none of the credit for the unusual success that followed.
Probably my most interesting position and the one for which I was least prepared occurred after my fifth year of teaching and coaching. I was looking for a summer job to augment my meager teaching and coaching salary.
I had a variety of odd jobs during my first four Summer's doing yard work for a company that maintained houses that were FHA foreclosures and working for a painting crew that maintained former Naval apartment housing. I had no experience in either of these areas but they miraculously hired me anyway.
In each of these two positions, I was assigned to a supervisor who was gracious, patient and mentored me through the learning process.
In the fifth Summer, due to health issues that resulted from the lead in the paint, I needed to find something else. I answered an ad to sell World Book Encyclopedia door to door.
Even though I grew up with the product and found It very useful, I not only did not know how to sell encyclopedias, I had never sold anything in my life. My wife told me that I was wasting my time and I would never make one sale.
Undaunted by her lack of support, I attended a three-day training session and went out on three calls the next weekend. I presented the materials, and no one bought. I went home, put the sales kit in a closet, and decided to find another job the next week.
The Monday night following the three presentations, all three families called me and said that they had thought it over and wanted to buy. I wrote those three-sales Tuesday night and sold nine more by the end of the week.
I happened to get the one-week check from World Book and my monthly paycheck from the school district on the same day. I had earned substantially more selling than I did teaching and coaching in far fewer hours.
By the end of the Summer, I had earned almost as much as I did teaching and coaching for an entire year. World Book offered me a sales management position with a guaranteed income twenty percent greater than my teaching salary and that began a twenty-six-year career.
I was promoted six times in the next twenty-one years. Each promotion brought a new challenge for which I was unprepared. Again, and again, I was on my knees asking God to help me make the conditions right for success. Time after time, he was faithful.
I retired as Vice President for School and Library Sales Western U. S. Isn't that ironic. No, it was the will of God. I never deserved all the recognition I received and so I give God the glory for all the great things he has done in my life.
The abundant life that He has promised those who are in fellowship with Him and "walk in the light" (1 John 1:1-7) is available to all those who have placed their faith and trust in Him. It is by His grace through faith that we are delivered from sin through the act of justification (Romans 5:1). It is through His grace that we are kept in fellowship continually being sanctified through confession and forgiveness (Hebrews 10:10). It is through His grace that we will one day be glorified as we stand with all those who have found eternal life in Him (Romans 8:17, NKJV). It is by His grace that we will stand beside Jesus as the Bride of Christ (Revelation 19:7-10).
Praise his name, His grace extends to all creation, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord" (Psalms 150). Praise His name, it is above all names (Philippians 2:9-11). Praise His name, God is the giver of grace (2 Corinthians 12:9).
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