My adopted daughter, Emagine (Emme), came to us at 2 1/2 years old with third degree burns on over half her body. It’s a miracle she’s alive. She’ll turn 11 this November and she’s beautiful.
This year she joined a city basketball league. Basketball is new to her, so the game has presented her with some unique challenges. And it’s created more than a few awkward and funny moments for us as parents.
Emme had such a moment in one of her last games when she had a wide open shot under the basket…and missed. She missed big! I looked over at Alissa and in that instant I saw what Emme’s life might have been. I suddenly said to Alissa, “You know, she would have never had this opportunity.”
To miss that basket was a blessing.
I was overwhelmed.
There are times in our Christian life when we find ourselves more than ordinarily conscious of God’s love, His presence, and power. In these “flashes of grace” we see where we would be. Who we would be. What life we would have. What blessings we would never experience, if not for the grace of God in Jesus Christ. We are found. We are rescued. And we are overwhelmed.
On the one hand, we always know we are loved by God. On the other hand, over the course of our life we can experience and “taste” on the palate of our heart the goodness of God. How?
Paul writes in Romans 5:5 that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” He writes again in 8:15-17 that “you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
There is a deepened awareness of our adoption as sons and daughters and an increased confidence and assurance of our salvation that the Spirit is responsible for. It is His work and His joy to give this at different times in our life. To intensify our sense of the abiding and loving presence of the Father and the Son with us.
This means that all of our experiences—the good and the bad—and all of our moments—in joy and in sorrow—are lived out under the blessing of God. You can no more leave His smile than you can run past the big blue sky. In Jesus all the treasures found in God—more than you can ask, think, or imagine—are freely given to us. So every basket made and missed in your life you can receive with the abundant and sufficient grace of God.
We lack nothing in, and nothing can separate us from, the love of God in Jesus Christ (Romans 8:31-39). So, go ahead, Emme, take that shot!