We all love
grace when we need it, and we need a lot of it. At the same time, there are
times when we are called to extend grace in difficult circumstances where we
would rather wash our hands of a mess that someone has created and be done with
it. Certainly society can be very unforgiving – and the workplace the same.
Christian
organizations and the church dance to the tune of a grace filled Lord which
means that there are times when we are called to clean up messed up lives and
give people a way toward greater health when they have made a mess of them. It
is often not our first choice, it is often thankless work and we do it for one
reason only: God extended grace to us and we are to extend grace to another.
It is easy
to abandon people who find themselves in trouble of their own making. After all
they created the mess, why should we help them get out of it. That line of
thinking works until we realize that Jesus stepped into our mess when we didn’t
deserve it. He did the hard thing of joining us in our mess and dying to redeem
us and our mess. Not one person would be in relationship with God without Him
doing the inconvenient and paying the ultimate cost.
This does
not mean that grace is easy. It is not easy for those who extend it. And for
those who need to receive it there must also be truth (Jesus was full of grace
and truth). Truth requires those in trouble to take ownership of their sin and
situation, be honest with themselves and others and do what they need to do to
see inner healing and restitution where necessary.
In fact,
part of the burden of grace extenders is that they also must help individuals
who often don’t want to face the full burden of their mess to see what is true
and confront what is in their hearts. These are hard conversations and there
are many who fight the process, want to circumvent the full truth and simply
move on. Grace extenders must be truth tellers and willing to go back and back
and back if necessary and insist on transparency.
Not everyone
responds to the combination of grace and truth but grace without truth is
hollow and truth without grace is harsh. Only the one who needs grace can
decide whether they will take it. We cannot force it. They must decide to
embrace it – along with the path toward wholeness and restoration. To run from
grace is foolish but to face the truth one must humble themself – a bridge too
far for those whose pride is larger than their willingness to face truth.
Extending
grace can be irritating (why did they do what they did?), inconvenient (Now I
must deal with someone else’s mess), difficult (I must confront and hold
another accountable) and time consuming (there is never a good time for a
mess). But in the end it is far less than what Jesus did and does for us and
that is the reason we extend the unmerited, undeserved favor of grace.
1 comment:
God's timing is perfect and your narrative is almost exactly a situation I'm walking through now. It is not only irritating and inconvenient, but it costs emotionally and sometimes I can only lean on James 4:17...when I am equipped and have the ability to do good for someone, if the nudge of the Holy Spirit is there, it would be wrong of me not to get involved. Wisdom must be used to make sure not to become enmeshed in the situation. It cost Jesus much emotion and "inconvenience" and so He asks us to join Him in ministry.
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