I’m coming to the end of a full (and rewarding) six-week stretch. It’s a busy time for me on the work front, plus we’ve spent the past three weekends traveling to see family, then Easter and lots of meetings and sickness and normal life happened in all of that too.
Today, I’ll teach on Hebrews 12-13 at my church, and that will be my last big “to-do” for the week and this semester. While prepping my talk for this morning, I was struck by how the author of Hebrews finishes the letter with a simple benediction:
“Grace be with you all.”
Dwelling on those final words of Hebrews brought to mind these words from John Newton. I revisited them a few times this week, and thought them a fitting benediction for this Friday.
Grace be with you all.
Grace reigns. Be that my motto.
As my case will be an exemplification of its reigning power, if I am found at last among the ‘more than conquerors’, as I trust I shall be.
I long for a retired walk among the woods... hedgerows where I might hear no noise but the baaing of lambs, and the singing of blackbirds. But here I must be. I must hear the rumbling of wheels, and have to force my way through a crowd from morning to night. No matter, if it be way to heaven, the end will make amends for all.