In
my last post, I indicated an unwillingness to define examples of what
true grace is out of fear of my own weakness to do so adequately.
However, I was motivated in my heart to do it and since I’ve not
been able to escape the continuing urge, I can only assume that the
urge remains for a reason and that the source has a purpose to be
fulfilled. My continued reluctance might be nothing less than
disobedience to the Holy Spirit which is not something I’m willing
to risk. I don’t have to know and I certainly don’t pretend to
know what His purpose is. My responsibility is simply to respond
obediently and trust that He knows what He’s doing.
I
know that I can be long winded, but I can’t resist taking the
opportunity to point out that trusting Him has become an easy thing
to do – when you get to know someone in a close personal
relationship, it becomes easier and easier to trust a trust worthy
person because they prove their faithfulness and competence over
time. But you can’t learn to trust in the faithfulness or
competence of anyone that you’re not willing to invest yourself in.
No one is more faithful or competent than the Sovereign Lord, but
you’ll never learn that intimately and personally from a distance.
Back
to the task at hand. - I'm humbly asking for His guidance and help to
make sure that His purpose is accomplished whatever it might be …
Grace
is a big subject. The short and simple definition that’s written on
my heart is this: unmerited favor. In order to have a better grasp of
what this phrase really means, we need to break it down:
Unmerited:
unearned , undeserved
Favor
(I borrowed this from Merriam Webster and edited it based on
applicability and appropriateness to the form we’re discussing
here):
1fa·vor
noun
\ˈfā-vər\
1
a (1) : friendly regard shown toward another especially by
a superior
(2)
:
approving consideration or attention :approbation
b
:
partiality
c
archaic
:
leniency
d
archaic
:
permission
e
:
popularity
3a
: gracious kindness; also : an act of such
kindness <did you a favor>
b
archaic
:
aid,
assistance
c
plural
:
effort in one's behalf or interest :
attention
4
a : a token of love
5
a : a special privilege or right granted or conceded
1
a : in accord or sympathy with
b
: to the benefit of : in support of <a verdict in
favor of the accused>
2:
to the order of
3:
in order to choose : out of preference for
—
in one's favor
1:
in one's good graces
2:
to one's advantage
It
might not be in the forefront of minds and lives that are touched by
it and blessed by it continually, but grace is such a big part of our
everyday lives. And without recognizing and acknowledging it as
continuously as we are receiving it, we risk offending the greatest
source of it. For example: if you’ve ever poured your heart into
something for someone else out of love and been met with a lack of
gratitude or maybe a failure to even acknowledge what you’ve done,
then you have an opportunity to understand something important. Flip
that situation that you’re thinking of around and imagine that the
characters involved are you as the recipient and your loving Lord as
the giver. By doing this, you should be able to put things into some
sort of real context in regard to our position as recipients of our
Lord’s generous grace … and most importantly - how HE might feel.
By
the way, maybe you do this and maybe you don’t (if you don’t you
may be missing something critically important in the most intimate of
relationships), but I find that by using life situations in
relationships that I experience, I can imagine what our Lord’s response might be to
them. I can sometimes imagine how He might feel. This does
require remembering who He is by His very own pure and perfect
nature, but we are created in His image and He does have
emotion. So keeping things in proper context, I think it’s very
possible to imagine how He might feel in response to our actions and
attitudes in response to Him. If you attempt to do this, you have
to remember who He is. You also have to bear in mind the truth of
His heart for you – no love in existence, past or present, could
even come close to the depth of His heart for you. At the same time,
He is righteous, just and holy - He is bound by His nature – it’s
we who allow or disallow His favor and blessing by our choices in
response to what He has already proclaimed.
Because
He gently and lovingly brought these thoughts to my own mind in my
relationship with Him, I find myself periodically trying to think of
things that I’ve failed to thank Him for or haven’t thought to
thank Him for recently. Simple things that we take for granted in our
daily lives, things that we have no right to expect, but He provides them
constantly. For example, I thank Him for running water, a roof over
my head, food in our cupboard, electricity, etc.. Even though some
might say “men created those things”, I know that He is
constantly working on our behalf through inspiration and revelation
and that He constantly sustains them. I also know that I could have
just as easily been born into desperate and destitute conditions
without any of these things and I pray for those who have. When I
begin to think about these things, I have to ask myself what right or
deserving attribute do I have that I am blessed by His grace to have
them? – the answer: none. Recognizing that, my heart has no choice
to be grateful for the favor I receive daily.
But
now, digging a little deeper, how about our possible failure to show
true and similar grace (in our much more limited capacity) to the
sons and daughters that He so dearly loves? Recognizing that every
human being was intimately and personally fashioned by the hand of
our great God, we know that He bears the same love and hope for every
one of them - no more, and no less than He holds for us. So if this
situation truly exists with any of us, then this creates some serious
problems.
I
found myself asking the Lord a few years ago why it was necessary for
me to end up in a job that seemed so contrary to my nature. The
answer, proved to be a lesson and exercise in how to show grace to
hurting people who by worldly business standards didn’t deserve it.
When our economy fell a few years ago, I was offered an opportunity
to work for a company that provided cable service – as a
collections agent. Without any other real possibilities showing
themselves during trying times and the fall of my own business, I
accepted the job in order to continue to care for my own family. But
it was uncomfortable and it was very trying to my own spirit. As I
began to learn the position, I was struck by the fact that the people
that I was dealing with door to door were in many cases similar to
myself. They were people who had the rug pulled out from under them
in one way or another, whether by their own choices or some other
factor, and were now struggling - most of them desperately.
For
many of them it was easy for me to have compassion, but being paid to
do a job, I had to find some balance to satisfy both my employers and
my increasingly suffering spirit. It forced to a point a need to do
what was required of me in a way that allowed me to also be at peace
in my heart. I needed to show Jesus to these people and at the same
time take away what little pleasure most of them had left in hard
times by disconnecting their cable. I was forced to find the answer
or give up the job and by design there wasn’t another job to be
found at the time.
It
wasn’t my fault or my employers (in most cases) that they didn’t
pay the bill. By societal standards they had failed to keep their end
of the bargain and a number of them were living in self imposed
squalor or filth. In regard to the first part of my last statement, I
found myself struggling in the same situation through a much reduced
income. I too had failed and in that regard was just as guilty as
many I was now forced to confront regarding their own situation. I
was one of them - not at all the kind of people that the world
respects or treats with much more than contempt.
But
the truth is that I was confronting people who in at least one way
were just like me. It began to create a lot of guilt in me. But, as
the Lord spoke to my heart, He confirmed that guilt wasn’t what He
wanted and it wasn’t the reason why I was in this job. I was there
because the situations presented by this job were a reflection of a
much larger and important situation … and there was much to be
learned from it. The truth is that before our God, we are all
failures of our own accord. We’re all of us, in the same boat, but
He doesn’t rub that in our faces. Instead, He treats us lovingly
and compassionately even though we don’t deserve it … and always
with the best of intentions for our eternal growth.
As
I sought the Lord regarding that job and the people I was dealing
with, he made it clear to me that this was about putting me in a
situation to learn how to give grace in some very difficult and
sometimes even dangerous situations … in such a way … that no
less than 80% of them … thanked me when I left them after turning
their cable off.
I’m
convinced in my heart that grace isn’t something represented as
material - it’s larger than that. It’s not something we do or say
- it precedes that. It’s having a heart to love the unlovely and
the unlovable - and I’m living proof as a recipient of my God’s
grace toward me. Think about the definition of grace that I gave
above, as I broke it down. It’s a heart condition and one
exemplified by a Godly heart toward us. If we truly seek to represent
Jesus to anyone, which is our duty as His disciples, then our own
hearts must be captive of this condition – otherwise, who and what
are we really and what do we really represent?
There
are so many other things, spiritually valuable things that I learned
in that job that I at first very much disliked. But that’s the
funny thing about our perspective. More often than not, it’s so
limited and often so self absorbed that we find ourselves crying out
unhappily when all the while our loving Father is working to profit
us. Sometimes we find that these trying times in life are nothing
less than His loving grace to give us gifts of understanding and
learning that are of immeasurable worth.
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