I'm learning about grace.
I grew up with some understanding of the concept of grace, long able to recite the Sunday school answer for the difference between grace and mercy; mercy is being exempted from what one does deserve, and grace is being given what one does not deserve. (Namely, God's mercy saves us from eternal death, and His grace invites us to eternal life). But I'm finding that the depth of my understanding of grace has been lacking.
I know what grace is, sure, but how does it look for me to rest in God's grace for me? If I'm drowning in the ocean of God's grace, how should that affect how I think and act towards myself and towards others?
Like much of life with Christ, embracing His character and centering on some truth about His stance towards me has implications for countless daily goings-on. Grace is no exception.
Grace's response is often counter-intuitive for me. And I'm beginning to think maybe for all humans.
We seem to have this natural inclination to want to be punished when we've done something wrong, and when we're offered grace instead of condemnation, we have a remarkably difficult time foregoing self-punishment. Because we feel that what we deserve is the shame, hardship, and pain that our bad decision or failure merits.
But what we miss is the beauty that life with Christ isn't fair. And that that's a good thing. A really good, redemptive thing.
When we're honest with ourselves, all of our grandest schemes for bettering ourselves cause us to fall flat on our faces, discouraged and still full of failures. There exists these paradigm-like truths about personal growth and change with Christ in the picture, and they go like this: Until we can accept that we are loved exactly as we are, we have a hard time changing anything about ourselves. The best impetus for change within ourselves is not a deeply rooted dissatisfaction with our current state, however propelling that may be at times, but rather a passionate desire for what we see may lie ahead for us, and an unshakable hope that that future state is not beyond our reach.
"Grace, only grace, can move us to a rhythm that will change our ways." (Grace, Tenth Avenue North)
Like TAN's song so elegantly puts it, only grace really helps us to change. When I attempt to defeat myself, I am hindering the work of Him who is championing for my success. When I refuse the love of Him who has no business loving me, but does anyway, I'm being a fool... I'm turning from the one thing my heart truly longs for--the unconditional, forever kind of love. Only this love, so unaffected by whether or not I deserve it, is the kind that I can rely on, the kind that can change me from the inside out.
I'm still figuring out what living in grace looks like, practically. It requires a lot of surrender, and a lot of re-thinking about things. It requires the subtle shift from working on myself, to opening myself to the work that God is doing in me. I want to make new habits, let go of some things that don't belong in my life, and add and develop some things that I believe do belong here. God calls me to holiness, calls me to living like Him. But He doesn't do so without a promise to be my strength, and my hope, and fulfillment.
Grace is so wonderfully difficult, a bit like trying to hug the ocean. We cannot portion out bits of grace for ourselves, here and there when we feel we have earned it. That's not how it works. He just lavishes it out onto us, when we least deserve it and when we feel we've been good, all the same. If I've doled it out for myself, then it isn't grace. Grace is His to give, and any grace we are able to give to each other flows out of the grace we have received and are receiving from Him. There's just too much of grace for me to contain it and control it. You can't give the ocean a leisurely hug. You'd just get soaked, and pulled in by the tide, and possibly knocked off of your feet. Because that's how grace does work. It's overwhelming, and constantly flowing, and messy, and it rises to meet you again and again.
