The Now and The Not Yet

I had some time alone yesterday--a rarity. While motoring around Danang,I was chuckling to myself about the incongruities that are everywhere...

...the beautiful, glass-enclosed restaurants with pressed white linens,chair skirts tied with fanciful ribbons--and a silver tray of square papers in the center of the table that are the...napkins.

...the full-time ladies' restroom attendant who vigilantly maintains shining tile floors, and spotless mirrors--and then neatly hangs her rubber gloves, cleaning rags and supplies on the hardware under the sink--in full view of the patrons.

...the ground breaking of a new apartment house where 30 management-type folk all wore yellow or white hardhats to watch the bulldozer dig, while down the street, a makeshift platform loaded with bricks swung precariously from a rope while two shirtless, barefoot workers struggled to pull it up to them on the second story, where they stood on homemade scaffolding.

...the "Big C Supercenter" that now has hairspray, hot glue guns, and whipping cream, but has only 4 colors of nail polish: green, gold, purple and red.

In the midst of my gentle chuckling. I felt the Lord nudge me with the thought that that's the way He sees me. Making progress in some areas, still coming up pitifully, and perhaps humorously, short in others. I am a person of the now and the not yet. I love Him more today than last month or last year; I understand more; I hear His voice better; my faith and obedience have grown. And yet...I live, too, in the "not yet"...there is so much room for improvement, for more peace, for more victory.

Admitting this about myself, and embracing it, can be a source of grace to extend to others. To celebrate growth and victories in the now, to be patient, forgiving and understanding in the instances of the "not yet."

Father, pour Your grace through me. Put a smile in my heart, as well as on my lips. Let me be to others what You are to me...kind, respectful, tender, understanding, loving, wise.

May you experience the presence of the One who knows you best as you walk through the Now and the Not Yet of your own life today!

Grace and peace!