Episode 252: What Might I Do with This Life?
The Rev. Dr. Alix Pridgen
What Might I Do with This Life?
Read Romans 3:19–28
We can get surprisingly comfortable with grace. God loves us. God forgives us. We know that. We’ve sung about it. We may have heard it every Sunday for most of our lives. And somewhere along the way, the promise that God loves us just as we are can become an excuse to stay exactly as we are. “I’ve always had a temper.” “I’m no good at asking for help.” “That’s just how my family is.” We know what we know. We have our faith—or our doubts—all worked out. We don’t expect much to change.
But grace changed the course of Martin Luther’s life. He had spent years asking whether he had done enough for God to love him. Studying scripture. Praying. Confessing his sins—and worrying that he had forgotten one. Then he read Paul’s promise that we are justified by God’s grace as a gift, through Jesus Christ. And a different question became possible: “What might I do with the life God has given me?”
That question has room in it. Room to discover something. Room to be wrong. Room to begin again without having to prove that we deserved another chance.