“Grace is the unhindered, wondrous, boundless love of God, poured out upon us in an infinite variety of ways, not according to our deserving, but His measureless heart of love. Put together the most deep, tender love you have felt, multiply by infinity, and you will faintly glimpse the love and grace of God! To grow in grace means being planted in the very heart of this divine love, to put ourselves in His hands and leave it with Him; to grow as lilies and babes, with neither care nor anxiety…
The slightest barrier between your soul and Christ may cause you to dwindle and fade, as a plant in a cellar or under a bushel. Our divine Husbandman can turn any soil into the soil of grace the moment we place ourselves in His hands. He does not need to transplant us.
We need to learn the flowers’ secret; to grow, but only in God’s way, not hindering Him with our own anxious efforts. What the flower is by nature, we must be by an intelligent and free surrender. Self must step aside to let God work…
What a picture of life and growth far different from the ordinary life and growth of Christians–a life of rest, and growth without effort, and yet a life and growth crowned with glorious results.
We may rest assured, that all the resources of God’s infinite grace will be brought to bear on the growing of the tiniest flower in His spiritual garden, as certainly as they are in His earthly creation. The violet abides peacefully in its little place, content to receive its daily portion without concerning itself about the wandering of the winds, or the falling of the rain…”
Source: Hannah Whitall Smith “The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life”
MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”
200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.