extremely demanding and utterly gracious

By all means, even though I am posting, please keep adding to the previous thread "community learning" ...ideas for living more simply and honest confessions of the not-so-simple.

I was at a retreat at Orchard this weekend, and through the sessions, there were some phrases and thoughts that caught my attention. At one point, we looked at Luke 22:24-34, and our facilitator talked about how Jesus's words to his disciples were "extremely demanding and utterly gracious," as he invited them into a lesson that they were not quite yet ready to receive.

I think he does that with us all of the time as we journey, even into simplicity. His words to us are extremely demanding and utterly gracious as He leads us on in following Him more fully. He knows that his children often prefer "creature comforts to Creator confrontations" and that we often try to "bypass around the inconvenience of repentance and sacrifice and putting ourselves at risk." Jesus doesn't hesitate to talk about what it takes to put aside the world and live in the kingdom, and at the same time, He floods us with grace in the process, knowing how messy it us for us and how easily deceived we are.

It reminds me of the analogy that C.S. Lewis uses..."we are like a little boy who prefers to play in a mud puddle when Jesus offers us a vacation at the sea."

The vacation benefits include greater freedom, joy, purpose, life, but I'm also aware that the vacation costs include greater surrender, discipline, sacrifice, dying. So, as we journey on with Jesus to the sea of more abundant living in the Kingdom, I am grateful that we have one another to encourage each other, and that we are able to be honest and full of grace with each other in the mud puddle.

A quote from my devotion this morning- "Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free."