Thursday, January 15, 2015

What's the Deal with Grace?!?!

  I'm working through a bible Study with a friend right now called, "One Way Love".  It's all about God's one way love towards us and the grace He shed's on us so freely and undeservingly.  To be honest I thought I had this whole grace thing down.  It's taken me years to move from a faith based on works to a faith based on Grace, and I think I had almost tricked myself into believing that I had no more work to be done in that area...that I was all done learning.  Boy was I wrong!
  This morning I was sitting down after my bible time, going through some of the questions that are in our study and I came to this set of questions: "Grace is unconditional acceptance given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver.  In what ways are we undeserving of grace? Are there ways in which we attempt to deserve it?  Or attempt to determine who can and cannot have grace?"
  At first the question was easy....I mean there are a million ways that I prove that I am not deserving...in fact I am completely UNdeserving....of God's grace.  So in my journal I began to list all those ways, thinking "I've got this question in the bag!  Kuddos to me" (So humble, right?!).  Even now I look at what I've just written and can't help but think that the very fact that I can point to ways in which I don't think I am deserving of grace, means there has to be a list of reasons why I do think I am deserving...but in the moment I hadn't quite gotten there. 
  Even as I went on to ponder the next part of the question... "Are there ways in which (I) attempt to deserve (grace)?".... my immediate answer was "OF COURSE NOT!" (Me thinks the lady doth protest too much)!  But then I got to the question, "Do (I) attempt to determine who can and cannot have grace", and....well that's when the you know what began to hit the fan!
  At first, I'll admit, I had the "I would NEVER do that" attitude going on (read that picturing an over acting women in a 1960's movie!).  But then I started thinking about the people in my life that I have a hard time loving...people who seem to not care about God at all or completely abuse any grace that is extended to them by anyone....and all of a sudden my feathers started to ruffle!  Why should someone like that continue to receive unconditional grace!  How can someone so ungrateful be worth of it! 
  That's when my ugly green monster of pride busted out from the cage I try so hard to keep it locked up in and it stepped onto it's soap box.  I obviously fail all the time at trying to live this perfect Christian life....but the key word there is TRY!  I TRY to be a good person.  I TRY to keep growing.  I TRY to honor God in everything.  I TRY not to commit the same sins over and over again!  Clearly I am a step a head of that no good grace abusing non believer...and thus I am clearly more deserving!!!
  WOW!  Talk about a slap in the face!  In that moment, not only did I come face to face with my own ungratefulness and judgementalness and blatant self-centered-ness....BUT  I also realized that in fact, what I was really saying is that Grace is something that is deserved....something based on what I do...on works!  CRAP!  The Bible clearly states in  Ephesians 2:8-9 that GRACE IS A GIFT and CANNOT be EARNED BY GOOD WORKS ("For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.").  SLAP #2 in the face!
  Now I could try to clean this all up now and make it look pretty and like I've finally gotten my act together in the last 12 hours of this day, but the truth is that's not real!  I'm wrestling with the fact that this is the state of my heart, that I haven't come has far as I think I have in my faith journey on this topic, and that I'm become really good once again at giving the "Christian" answer to things instead of really investigating what's going on in my heart! 
  This isn't a sitcom....in real life things don't get resolved in 30 minutes!  And just because it's tempting to put on the "I'm a Missionary, I'm suppose to know all of this down pat to the core of my soul by now" mask so that I don't feel looked down on, I'm not going to do that...not tonight anyways....because I honestly believe it's good to wrestle with these things and to mull them over in your mind and to be truthful enough to bring them to God without the polished veneer on it! 
  So tonight I sit in the uncomfortableness of it all, realizing it's okay to not have it all worked out and to not be completely put together.  If infact grace is unconditional acceptance given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver, then maybe my struggle (and not my pretend put togetherness) is what puts me in the perfect place to receive it!   
 

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