Increase your grace within us

Today is the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity. The phrase I want to reflect on this week is, “Increase your grace within us”. I tend to think the terms, “God’s grace” and “God’s love”, are more or less interchangeable. So when I pray for God’s grace to be increased within me, I’m praying for God’s love to be increased within me. I’m sure regular reader’s of the blog won’t be surprised to see me talking about God’s love … again.

I think there’s one particularly special way we can all experience an increase of God’s grace, his love, within each one of us. Give it away! Give it all away! And keep on giving as much of it away as you possibly can. And the amazing thing is, it won’t diminish what you yourself receive. Just the opposite in fact, it will increase it. The more you give God’s love away, the more you yourself will experience it. And the more you experience it, the more it will change you into the person God calls each of us to be.

The picture above is one that used to be in the header of the blog, so some of you may recognize it. It’s a picture taken of what is usually quite a mundane scene, looking out over the rooftops of the Oxmoor Estate in Huntingdon, where I live — I took it in our back garden. That mundane scene of a few rooftops, a few trees, some clouds and a bit of sunlight, have been transformed by coming together in just the right conditions into something really quite staggering. I’d never seen colours so vibrant in the sky before.

God’s grace and love are a little like those “just right” conditions, and can transform our lives from the mundane into something really quite amazing. When we allow God’s love to shine in our lives, like the sun is shining in that picture, it can transform them into something amazing. And one of the best, and easiest, ways to allow God’s love to shine in and through us is by giving it away, sharing it with everyone we meet. In that way, God’s love and grace will transform us into the amazing people he always meant us to be … even me. Not a bad ideal to be aiming for.

God of constant mercy,
who sent your Son to save us:
remind us of your goodness,
increase your grace within us,
that our thankfulness may grow,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect for The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council