Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
I had a dream about a new beginning in my life. In the dream, I saw a painting of a city, but it was incomplete. There were places on the canvas where the artist had not yet painted parts of the city. The dream had the feeling of an accordion. 
The city is my life. The incomplete parts are what is yet to be finished. I am the artist. God has given me the canvas, the pedestal, paint, and supplies to create a masterpiece (at least in His eyes). He has also given me hope, faith, vision, dreams, desires, and so on. He has given me everything that is needed to create this masterpiece.
Of vital importance, He has given me His breath, that is the accordion. He breathes into our life like He did Adam in Genesis 2:7 and the disciples in John 20:22. When God exhales, we can inhale and receive His creative life force.
When we exhale, we release His creativity. Adam named the animals with the creative breath of God (Gen 2:19). The disciples brought a multitude of people into the kingdom of God with the breath of the Holy Spirit (John 20:23).
I began to look at the painting in the dream and think about what to do now. I began to feel some pressure to perform. Little by little, day by day, I felt like I needed to do something more than I was doing. I started feeling a little anxious. I was a little bit stressed. Doubts started creeping into my mind. Slowly and insidiously I began to strive in my mind on how to go about the painting.
That was a very poor start to a such a gracious new beginning in my life.
It is a vicious cycle because when you struggle with something, it is easy to go down the rabbit hole searching for the magical answer. I need to fix my relationship with God. I need to pray more. I need to read the Bible more. I need someone to believe in me. I need a prophetic word. I need to take some time off. I need to find out how successful people are doing it. And on and on we go deeper into the hole.
Suddenly, I was startled, like being awakened from a nap. I realized I had started down the rabbit hole. I asked God, “What is going on with me?” He answered me on the spot with one word, “Grace.”
We are a grace people. It is not just a doctrinal truth to us. We have received a genuine revelation of grace, preached on grace, talked about grace, defended grace, wrote about grace, and grown in grace for years now. Christ is our life and we endeavor to allow Him to live His life in and through us (Gal. 2:20).
Yet, sometimes I find myself not living the life of grace. It is never intentional, but life comes at you. There are myriad of decisions, concerns and problems we are facing.
We have relationships, finances, family, work, ministry and on and on that need our attention. There are things we are doing, need to do or hope to do that are important to us.
What do you do when you find yourself going down the rabbit hole? Stop, take a deep breath of His life-giving breath of grace. When He said, “Grace” to me, I inhaled the life of Christ and exhaled all that crazy, striving stuff.
When we breathe Him, life happens as it is meant to be. The painting can’t help but take shape. All we have to do is just breathe baby breathe. We are all artists commissioned by God to paint some beautiful masterpieces.
Many Blessings, BW