Grace Even For Me

There is an old joke about a minister who was preaching on forgiveness.  Toward the end of the sermon, He asked his congregation, "How many of you have forgiven their enemies?” Everyone raised their hand except one small elderly lady. The minister asked, “Mrs. Jones, aren’t you willing to forgive your enemies?”  Smiling sweetly, she said “Oh, I don’t have any.”
      
The minister was thrilled and saw an opportunity for a lesson.  "Well Mrs. Jones, what a blessing!  Would you please come down in front of the congregation and tell us all how a person can live ninety-three years as you have and not have an enemy in the world?"
      
Sweet Mrs. Jones tottered down the aisle, faced the congregation, and said "I outlived the old bags!"

As believers, we like to think that we are always ready to extend forgiveness and grace wherever it is needed. Yet, there is someone to whom we are slow to show mercy. Actually, we are more inclined to beat on and berate them. Down deep, we feel that this person does not merit the benefit of the grace we would offer.

That person would be me. I mean, you. Us.  

In the Psalms, David wrote that his sin was always right there, directly in front of him.  A constant, accusing reminder, staring him in the face.  He lived with it continually like a cloud that hung over him, as do many of us.  After all, we know who we really are inside.  We are hyper-aware of our weaknesses and failings.  We feel the pain of our disappointments with ourselves more acutely than anyone else.  Still, while we cannot take our sins and shortcomings lightly, or invoke a form of cheap grace to gloss over them, neither should we beat ourselves up about them. But that is the default position for many of us (certainly, not all. Some folks could use a major-league reality check for their own blind spots. Trust me. I have names.).

If we can’t just let our sins and weaknesses skate by, and we shouldn’t keep whacking ourselves over the head repeatedly with a 2x4 (neither healthy nor holy), what is the correct way to look at ourselves when we are so prone to fall short?

We need to take God’s attitude toward our failings.  Scripture tells us that He takes sin seriously, wants us to change and makes His enabling grace available for that. But – and this is important – the Bible teaches that He never browbeats or condemns us for our failings as we are so prone to do to ourselves. That voice you hear calling yourself names?  Take this to the bank - it’s not His. That’s you, feeding into the defeatist accusations you have listened to for so long. 

God, our perfectly loving Father, ALWAYS  loves us and ALWAYS calls us His beloved children. The old saying is true - He loves us too much to leave us as we are. But His correction is never condescending or abusive. It is firm, but it is completely loving.

Recently, we have been blessed with a grandson. Often, I become very aware of how I find myself talking to him, as I talked to my girls at that age. Think about how you would talk to a young child (forgetting that you begin to sound like an infant yourself. Dignity, in those moments, is overrated).  Think about all those instincts you have to say loving things, to protect them, affirm them, let them know they are safe and build them up – where do you think they come from?  You and I were made in God’s image. That is His nature coming through.  That is how He sees and deals with us, His precious kids. We need to keep this in mind when we look at ourselves. 

What do we so often say about others?  “Hate the sin, but love the sinner”.  How about extending that to one more sinner, and seeing ourselves as God does: as beloved, favored children of a loving Father, who is always ready to help us grow in those places where we dissapoint Him, others and ourselves?