What are you most afraid of? What makes your heart drop to the pit of your stomach or pound filled with adrenaline? For me it’s heights, not just heights but maybe more of falling. This idea of climbing to a peak of a mountain, of reaching a high point in your life then you lose your footing and end up in a heap on the ground. In all honesty it is probably not even just physical falling that I am afraid of. I am afraid of falling off of a moral pedestal that I have created. I hate the idea that I am no better than the drug addicts, abusers, blasphemers, killers, theirs, and haters. I tend to create this idea that my sins are not that bad, an attempt to prove to myself that I am worthy of the love I feel each day from my parents, my friends, and most of all my God. But in truth I am truly broken, and I have already fallen from my metaphorical pedestal. I have used people, manipulated people I said I loved, thrown away people who need me, tried to hurt those around me, and I have not loved those who need it. But the cool thing about God is that he still loves me. He loves me enough to give me the greatest gift ever possible. He will give me in all my faults, love, forgiveness… Grace.
Grace is a tricky concept but it is a crucial part of how God works in our lives. I guess I should first explain what grace means to me. Grace is kind of like getting a gift that is so great that you could never ever pay the giver back for it. If I were to randomly give you a hundred bazillion dollars, or some sum of money that will never exist, there would be no way to pay me back. But the thing that is different than what was given to us is so much greater than any sum of money, any possession, or any part of this small planet called Earth. We have been given access to a kingdom that is out of this world incredible, a place in a new world, a world that is good and loving, Gods kingdom.
Wait I feel that I just skipped a huge part. Now grace is such a tricky concept because you can think you are explaining it in a way that everyone can understand then you realize that you are talking in that dang Christian language, it’s clearly different and confusing. So I could choose to go about explaining Grace like this; by definition grace is “disposition to or and act or instance of kindness courtesy or clemency.” But this definition doesn’t even mean as much as the kind of grace that I am talking about. The best way that I can describe grace is the act of giving something to someone that they will never be able to deserve. That is in all honesty the best I can do.
Now if I were reading this I would want to know where the writer was going with this rambling. In truth I am trying to get here, complete confusion, so that we can find our way back out. So here we go, this word grace is thrown around a lot in Christian circles and sometimes I don’t even know what we are talking about. Am I being asked to show grace to someone who may have wronged me, or am I being asked to not judge the way a speaker is telling me to live my life. Or am I being told about the grace that God has shown us by sending his son down to die for every time I fall off of my moral pedestal. This is the idea of grace that I really think about when I hear that word. The Grace of God is something that was given to us, a forgiveness for our faults, our disloyalty, our hatred, our sin. The grace that God showed us was his gift of forgiveness a path to redemption that he provided when Jesus died to save us. I wouldn’t say that grace is even a concept that our humans mind could create, we create more of action of mercy, or forgiveness. While in Christian circles we may say “show grace to this person.” But who are we to decide who deserves our forgiveness or not. It says many times in the New Testament that we are not to judge our neighbor but to treat them with love and forgiveness. As humans we show mercy to those who wronged us where God showed grace to humanity because we continuously wrong him when we sin and hate those who he created. I would like to make the claim that as I understand it humans would be incapable of grace, because how can we expect anything from anybody else that we would not be able to fulfill our selves. Therefore grace is an action in which only God can complete because his expectations are infinite so we would never be able to deserve the great sacrifice Jesus made for us. Also saying that I would say his love is infinite because he showed us the great act of grace that is sending His son to die for us.
I guess overall I am saying one thing and one thing only. We, as Christians, as human beings, should do our best to focus on forgiving and showing love to those who wronged us because God showed us his love through his gracious act of sending his son down only to sacrifice him and save us. For without this act of grace we would all be lost and still stuck in times of legalism and hatred. Therefore we need to focus on loving each other and doing our best to create a world in which we accept all people, all groups and all beliefs. I am not saying that we have to agree with them but we should show mercy and forgiveness for all people and focus on love and not condemnation.
Thank you for reading my rant it was a little confusing even for me but I feel like good questions were created, and maybe even some were answered.
Following blind is not following at all,
Cyrus Schaaf
