Grace Recognized

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

7 : behalf, interest — in favor of

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.