Over the weekend I was able to travel to Indianapolis and attend a women’s Christian conference. This was my third time going and I do enjoyed the speakers and time with great friends. Every session of this conference taught me something, showed me something, challenged me in some way. And it was wonderful to head back to the hotel with some friends after a full day of listening and just pour out everything I learned and hear what challenged them and cry and grow together.
I can’t really choose a favorite session or speaker because they all spoke to me in a different but good ways, however, one session I plan to rewatch when it hits YouTube is the one on grace. I love the word grace — the meaning, the way it works in lives and changes us — it truly is an extraordinary gift from God. I love it so much it’s on my author tagline {Grace. Hope. Everyday.} and we gave one of my daughters the middle name Grace.
The problem is we seem to limit grace to salvation. When we are witnessing to someone or marveling at our own salvation, we are quick to point out it is by grace alone. Nothing we do. Nothing we earn. Just plain grace from a Holy God who loves us and gives us the amazing gift of grace that we don’t deserve. But after we accept this free gift, we tend to keep grace to ourselves. Maybe we don’t realize we still need it daily. Maybe we don’t know we can continue to share grace with others. Or maybe we’re just plain selfish. But the truth is, grace is not a one time occurrence. We continually need it and God continually gives it. {James 4:6} And guess what?! Other people need it after salvation too! Now we can’t give them the same grace God bestows on us but we can show them love, patience, acceptance when they haven’t done anything to earn those responses from us. And isn’t that what grace is?
Back to the conference. The speaker gave an illustration that caused us to chuckle but also struck a nerve. She said sometimes we walk around in need of a toe-stub amount of grace. That’s not a whole lot and then we look over at a friend who’s lying on a stretcher, she can’t even move she’s in need of so much grace during a certain trial or stage of life. We might be tempted to say, “Don’t worry, God, I don’t really need this grace. Give it all to her and I’ll just stumble along until I need more than a stubbed toe amount.”
Meanwhile, our friend on the stretcher might look at us and think, “Why in the world does she need grace? She only stubbed her toe! She’ll live. She can do anything she wants, she doesn’t need grace from me or anyone else. Her life is fine. I’m the one in need here!”
Both of these responses are wrong. The person who says she doesn’t need grace until something big happens is trying to live life without God’s help, trusting in herself to make it through the everyday. She appears to be self sacrificing and thoughtful of others but in reality, she’s refusing the grace God offers because she doesn’t believe her problems are big enough to need God.
Her friend on the stretcher believes her unique, huge, difficult circumstances demand more grace than others around her. Maybe she’s bitter or angry when she hears them talk about their situations because it all seems so small compared with what she’s facing. She wonders why they need grace and resents them.
The truth, and the point the speaker was making, is we always need grace. For salvation, of course. But everyday after we must be dependent on God’s gift of grace. {Heb. 4:16} Without it, we start depending on ourselves and thinking we can do things in our own strength and wisdom. Grace meets us in our weakness and carries us along. {II Cor. 12:9-10}
And we also need to come alongside others and show them grace. Maybe you have a friend in a deep valley of life. When she doesn’t text you back, never wants to meet for lunch, instead of brushing her aside you can show grace through your prayers and continued friendship, even if you’re the only one trying. {I Peter 4:10} And if we’ve just stubbed our toe and we’re okay but feel on the verge of stumbling deeper, we can ask for prayer, look to God, and he will abundantly provide what we need.
Think about this in closing: God doesn’t just give us the exact amount of grace we need for a day. He lavishes it on us, giving more than we need at a time. Our cup overflows with his goodness. {Eph. 1:7-8} And what do we do with this abundant grace? We pass it on to those around us. God isn’t going to run out. We don’t have a set allotment of grace for our lives so we need to keep some in reserve. We can give grace to others in gratitude for the grace already showered upon us.
Photo by Ina Soulis on Unsplash.