Rescinded Grace
I have this tendency that I am largely unaware of, one that lies dormant within me for the vast majority of the time. I live and breathe with it, but its presence is not felt. I am in blissful ignorance.
Then something happens to stir it within me.
This is how it happens, working itself out in 1000 different ways, yet always following this protocol (what can I say? I’m German, I really love my rules!):
1) I wake up, thinking the best about everyone.
2) People in my life are awesome, lending credence to #1.
3) I give others grace, trusting that they will do likewise for me.
4) While going about my business, I am stealthily betrayed, accused and/or arbitrarily blamed.
5) I close my fist tight around the grace that I was so ready to offer.
6) In my heart, I rescind my offer of grace
7) I decide that the Old Testament had a point with “an eye for an eye.”
Such a situation presented itself to me today. I came with grace and compassion and was met with disdain and anger.
I came as a good Christian girl.
Met with such forceful malice, I felt my heart grow cold within minutes.
The grace I had to offer was my own and was purely contingent on receiving mutual benefit. The moment I saw that I would be treated so poorly without just cause, I withdrew my offer.
It’s a good thing that God doesn’t function as I do, isn’t it? What if I served a capricious God who would withdraw His love, His grace, His salvation, if I did not in every moment of every day act as He desired? What a strange thing it is that I EXPECT God to be patient and forgiving and full of grace for me – yet I refuse to treat others that way, instead in my own wicked heart, desiring retribution!
What a revelation of madness of the human soul!
If God can forgive me, bear with my continual failings and shortcomings, pick me up when I fall over the same obstacle again and again, lead me back to His way after my own desires have led me astray, how can I NOT pour out that same, UNCONDITIONAL grace that I have been given and continue to receive? What hypocrisy and selfishness of heart to make human love, gentleness and kindness a conditional matter!
Look around. Every single person will fail you. It is inevitable, because we are all imperfect (i.e.: we’ve got this tendency to sin and screw up on a daily basis – who knew?!). The sooner we grasp that concept and stop expecting those around us to hold us up and stroke our egos, the more free we will be to love them, even when their words and actions are an abhorrence to us.
I feel like today God dared me to love the unlovely, the people who do not desire my good.
It’s what He did for you and for me.
The Sasquatch Soul: wandering, searching deeply, and avoiding photos. 
Josh said,
November 3, 2015 at 4:24 pm
I eel like you a LOT of days