Graced

It's written deep within mankind's psyche, we can't help ourselves, no matter how hard we try we find it virtually impossible to receive without any effort of our own. Working for reward makes sense. We can measure ourselves by our exploits and victories, we can raise ourselves above our fellow strugglers bestowing the blessings of the bright and beautiful upon our admirable heads.

However, there is no safety net for the flawed. There is nowhere to go when our strength has failed us. There is no reward for our frailties.

Grace is not a reward. It is given freely, it is unmerited and unconditional. Grace does not have favourites. Grace is not a garland around the victors head. Grace must be received and not achieved.

Why is this grace so liberating? For me it is because it gives me, first and foremost, an insight into the heart of God. In Jesus, God's living autobiography, His living self portrait, I see a heavenly mission that finds it's birth beyond the heavens, the farthest stars and even the universe itself. I see a mission of such love that it humbles the greatest powers of all creation in all eternity. This love propels God onto our little world's stage where grace meets the broken and the hopeless. This grace promises:"The poor in spirit the kingdom of heaven", words forever fail the extravagance of this gift. I see myself, my flawed and failed life, and I see this grace that, whether I can understand it or not, refuses to deviate from it's goal; my struggling soul, my heavy heart.

It is free... even more outrageous, this grace is without obligation. Outrageous, too glorious for words.

I now have the wondrous challenge of thankfulness as I seek forgiveness from those whom I have wounded or hurt, as I speak up for those whose voices are silenced, whose lives have been cast down and cast aside, as I seek to bring hope to fellow outcasts, as I journey to reply to his grace with my own commitment of becoming gracious.

I am free. I am free to receive and I am challenged to freely give. Never again am I to be measured by my own actions, I am forever graced by the actions of a dying man pleading forgiveness over a unrepentant and horrendously guilty humanity. This cry of forgiveness reaches into the farthest corner of creation beyond all eternity. This forgiveness from the lips of God himself forever challenges our concept of deity, it forever challenges our response, it forever challenges our existence with each other as the unconditionality of the gift inspires our frail graced steps toward becoming unconditionally giving.

I can never be the same again.