New years resolution for the bankrupt gardener was to forget the past and rely on the fuchsia.

So this is the New Year

I am overwhelmed. And perhaps not by the things that some may think I should be. As am I surrounded by a sea of well wishes and unlikely resolutions - of crippling fear and spiritual ferment, there is a reality that I simply cannot shake.

Grace.

I realize the possibility that we may be inoculated to this well quoted verse, but its deep and staggering truth whispers tirelessly in my soul:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
- 2 Corinthians 9-10 (NIV)

Do you know how many gallons of water there are in the ocean? The closest I am able to enumerate is 3.612 x 10²º gallons. There is roughly seven quintillion five hundred quadrillion (7,500,000,000,000,000,000) grains of sand on Earth. A team of researchers at Australian National University estimated that there 70 sextillion stars in the known universe.

And yet, God's grace is larger, more unfathomable than all of this.

Think about that for a second. You could empty every ocean, gather every beach, and snatch every star from the sky and still only begin to scratch the surface of God's ceaseless grace. Confronted by such verity, I find myself at an absolute loss.

I am feeble, debilitated, and flimsy - and yet He permits my ears to hear the songs of His blessed melody.

The New Year is upon us, and although I am often filled with uncertainty, I cling to the promise that His mercies are new every morning. May we live in the daring, reckless, and audacious Spirit of the One who makes us whole.

"You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore."-Author Unknown