Joel Young Blog.com

This week I started reading a book that has been on my shelf for quite sometime, but I have never picked up. It’s by Max Lucado and it’s called In the Grip of Grace. I haven’t gotten very far into the book yet but the opening chapter shares a very cool story that depicts the common reaction people have to grace. It’s about a king who has four sons and through a series on events in which they disobeyed their father’s instruction 3 of the sons are swept down a river in to a distant and horrible land. At first they all have hope of being rescued by their father, but one by one they all forget these notions and accept their fate as punishment for their wrongdoing. This effects them so much that when their father sends the one remaining brother to rescue them only one is able to accept it.

Believe me, the story is much better in the book, but the concept still seems strange to me. Why wouldn’t someone want to be rescued from a horrible situation, like the brothers? Well, if you look at in the context of grace there are a lot of people in this world that think like those three disobedient brothers. They never feel good enough for grace, or feel like they deserve it. I have met several people in my ministry that have held fast to this train of thought. But what they fail to grasp is how crazy grace is. It goes against the grain of common sense.

I’m not saying that I fully understand God’s grace, I think our human minds can only comprehend so much of it, but I have always felt like I understood it pretty well. Then, one day I see it in a new light and the concept will totally blow me away again. I think it’s good to be continually floored by the awesomeness of our faith, and I hope this book helps me to gain more insight on the complex subject of God’s grace.

This pasty week my wife and I were lucky enough to get away for a great vacation in Gatlinburg, TN. Neither of us had been down there since we were little so we figured it would be a great destination. It was great, but the one drawback was how expensive everything was down there. We had a large list of things we wanted to do and so we decided to allow one of the street vendors to target us for some time-share presentation in exchange for over $100 worth of tickets to local attractions.

I know that most of you are thinking, “you are a total sucker,” but I assure you that could not be further from the truth because I actually learned something during that terrible 90 minutes. One of the statistics that they presented was that in America the average family only takes 7 days of vacation a year. You’re probably thinking that doesn’t sound so bad, but here’s the kicker. In Europe the average family takes an astounding 28 days of vacation a year. In direct correlation with that the divorce rate, suicide rate,and domestic violence rate in Europe is a fraction of what ours is here in the states.

Now I’m nobody’s fool, but that is frightening. That really shook me up as an expecting father and made me realize how important personal family time really is. Not just vacation time, but time where it is just you and your family with no distractions. If I had to guess what the number on killer of families is I would guess busyness. Fathers being too busy to see there kids, kids being too busy with all of their activities to really be kids, and so on. Look at your life and where your priorities lie. How much uninterrupted time have you spent with your family this week?

On my way home for Memorial Day I passed an interesting sign on the side of the road. It was an election sign out on a little country road. Somehow, it seemed to fit in with the landscape. This was a sign made of nothing more than three pieces of scrap wood that were painted yellow. It even had hand painted letters (if only all politicians had people dedicated enough to hand paint all of their signs). I realize this is my hometown we are talking about, but frankly after living there for nearly 20 years nothing surprises me anymore. Not even the fact that the guy managed to spell his own name wrong, or at least I hope that is the wrong spelling. But heck, if I were still living on Wayne Township I might even vote for Skeetr simply for his vigilance.