I overheard a group’s heated debate on grace in a coffee shop recently. “I believe we deserve all that God gives us by default simply because we’re his children!” said a guy as he sipped his hot pumpkin spice latté.
“Christians use ‘grace’ as an excuse to keep on sinning and take no responsibility whatsoever for their actions,” responded a girl, rolling her eyes.
“What do you think?” asked my friend, quietly, while the loud discussion continued at the next table.
I had to spend a few minutes thinking. My thoughts quickly spanned an array of neatly-packaged-Sunday-School-definitions from my childhood to messier-harder-to-capture-in words-understanding of today.
For years I’ve known the word. I’ve memorized the definitions. “Grace is what is generously given us even when we don’t deserve it.”
As my understanding grew, it became more than a good word or a definition. It grew into a good concept in my mind, something from a world higher and better than our own. It came from a perfect place and defied my natural instincts. Something that transcended the way I wanted to think and sometimes act.
“We only possess what we experience… Truth to be understood must be lived,” sang Charlie Peacock in the 80s. What a difference to experience grace firsthand, to embrace it, to understand what it truly is!
Jesus told a parable in response to criticism from the rule-following religious community of His day. They lived from the words/definitions/knowledge in their heads rather than from conviction/passion in their hearts. They were fixated on following rules. The focus was on doing the right thing as detailed by written law. The focus was on avoiding what was wrong as that brought disapproval, shame and guilt.
When the focus is merely on following rules to be right, it quickly becomes all about ourselves—what we do, what we avoid doing, how perfect we are in our own eyes, how perfect we appear to others.
It can become all about appearances – how perfect do I look? This would lead to crafting perfect/flawless exteriors that mask the decay inside.
We set ourselves up to fail. And we become extremely judgmental in the process.
Life is not about appearances or following rules just to be right. Rules based on our individual sense of right and wrong can be wrong. And we all fail in following God’s principles.
That’s where grace comes in.
Grace is God’s kindness, patience and love given to us when we deserve the opposite. Grace is favor, even when we don’t deserve it. Grace cannot be earned. We cannot work for it. We already have it.
“God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are,” says Philip Yancy in What’s So Amazing about Grace? He also says, “Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.”
Grace makes it possible for us, flawed as we are, to understand our origin, to connect with and know our flawless Creator. Grace is our foundation for connecting/relating to God.
In knowing our Creator intimately comes understanding. With understanding comes the wisdom to discern what is right and wrong. And out of love grows the desire to please Him by following His principles, a.k.a. deep/true transformation.
Grace is about belonging. It’s about identity.
Jesus described grace best when he once told this parable:
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ (Luke 15: 11-24)
When the focus is on the One who extends grace to us (and in all of history there has been only One who has done this), the result is unmistakable. We then say to our fellow men, “I’m just as messed up as you are. I choose to be covered by God’s grace and hope that grace flows out of my life to touch and transform all in my path.”
What I’m left with is this heartfelt, dynamic, “I’m-experiencing-it-now” kind of definition…
~shini abraham, ©2015, duco divina – contemplative doodling
Recent Comments