God's Grace

While sitting in the ICU with my Dad this past week, we had a lot of visitors.  Dad is a good man, he has been good to a lot of people and lots of them stopped by to visit.  Sometimes, during those visits I would step out and have get a little "Cash" in the lobby but sometimes I would sit and watch and listen.
During my last morning with Dad before I had to head back to Charlotte, a Gideon friend of Dad's came in...I didn't know him but his words made an impression on me.  Dad told him his story of God's grace and how thankful he was to be alive and the man's response was not what we had heard so many times.  He said "Gene, a lot of people would question why God saved you from the heart attack but didn't keep you from having the heart attack."  I thought, oh no where is this headed?  But the man followed with this statement and it's the one that I can't quit going back to ...."But the answer is pretty simple, you've made bad choices for many years with your eating etc that caused your heart to fail...but God provided a way for your heart to continue working and it will be up to you to keep it healthy."
On the surface, just looking at my Dad's health and heart that's pretty spot on...but I have looked at it beyond that.  Isn't this exactly what God does with us...every.single.day.
Before salvation, we live our life our way...but when we come to Him, he makes our heart clean...new.
After salvation, though we have experienced His saving grace...we still make bad choices.  We let pride, selfish ways or whatever get in our way and our heart becomes full of sin...BUT we can over and over again, come back to Him, ask for forgiveness and our heart is clean.
It breaks my heart to think how many times I have to ask for that forgiveness.  God has given me so much, yet I still mess up.  But how thankful I am that He loves me, He cares for me and He continues to forgive me. 
Just like Dad is having to make alot of different choices when it comes to the activites he will be doing and the food that he will be eating...as a child of God, I need to be sure I am making the right choice to.   I need to remember that of all the commandments, He said to love is the most important.  So...here's to making my heart healthier....I'll have a salad for dinner and I will choose to show love to all those around me.