More Reflections on Grace

Money eases the way to him who holds it,

But the arms of grace will carry any man.

- Rachel Beach

Reflecting on the sensation of being offered grace, the sickened feeling of shame and then joy at unmerited, unexpected kindness and mercy of friends and strangers in these past few weeks, I consider how much more it should speak of our attitude toward God. Were it not for His overwhelming love and grace, we should be hated and cursed specimens, worms undeserving of anything but squirming in the mud, our sin. If I was oppressed for a week at the thought of breaking a friend's trust by wrecking his truck, how much more should our every day and every thought be consumed by the agony of hurting our loving God, our Creator, of sinning day after day and laughing about it. Yet Christ does not want us to walk in this misery, he wants us to walk in irrepressible joy, as one walking forth from a prison, our jail-time paid by his death.

The sad truth is, however, that we do neither. We neither care nor consider how wretched we are, how much we hurt our Father. Sick to our stomachs over our sin? Rarely. We take for granted every day we walk upon the earth as if we created ourselves and will, by our fine speech and glossed-over deeds, deliver ourselves inside heaven's gates. Nor do we find joy in our salvation. The prospect that our destiny is a most incomprehensibly lovely place, not torture and continual death does not evoke spontaneous laughter or tears of gratefulness. It should.