Grace

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, most gladly I will boast in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.                                                II Corinthians 12:9

I was recently speaking with a client about grace, and he talked about his feelings of unworthiness regarding God’ s gracious acceptance of him. He had hurt people in his life, and he felt shame for his actions. I reminded the client about the definition of grace, being “unmerited favor”. I suggested that it is common for us to keep trying to put our own merit (or lack of it) into the equation, and that by doing so, it no longer remains grace- it then becomes the wages of our work.

It is, I think, a pretty natural tendency for us to expect compensation for our work. We expect that we get paid for our work, and conversely, we do not get paid if we do not work. Perfectly sensible and right in our economy.  

Yet God’s economy is different. The grace that we receive- his love, forgiveness, even favor in circumstances where we deserve failure, but end up with success- all are examples of grace. We may struggle with these things because we “don’t deserve them”. The answer is, it is true, we do not deserve grace. We don’t earn it, we receive it.

Perhaps it challenges our sense of justice. Maybe it is an indicator of our pride. We just have a hard time receiving grace, and we make a narrative that we are unworthy.

The concept of grace is contrary to our nature oftentimes. Yet, God’s economy is just that. He loves us and he extends extravagant grace that we may not understand, grace that we feel that we do not deserve, and have trouble accepting.

I suggest that we try not to understand, but just receive it gratefully.  

Prayer: Lord, your grace is sufficient, even if we do not completely understand it, Amen