Jonathots Daily Blog
(2004)
I remember how thrilled I was in my twenties when I realized that even though my rent was due on the first of the month, I had five days to pay it before I was delinquent. It was referred to as the “grace period.”
But here’s the problem with that idea: within two months I became convinced that my rent was not due until the fifth. Instead of following the rules of the lease, which said I should pay on the first, I felt my rent could wait until the fifth. Eventually I created my own grace period–I started paying on the tenth and then the fifteenth. In no time at all, I rationalized that I was only one month behind.
You see, grace sounds like a wonderful idea until it’s perverted in the mind of a human twister. Rather than being grateful for the extension of mercy, we have a tendency to redefine and expand upon the original offer.
It doesn’t work in our secular society when we tell people to lie, cheat, deny and avoid doing anything admitting fault, and it does not work in the religious community either, where we generate simpering converts who tearfully espouse their weakness and pray for God to cover their lack.
Is there anywhere or any place where people are still trying to make better human beings?
I will tell you what grace is NOT. From there you can draw your own conclusions:
1. Grace can never be expected. Why? Because the Good Book says that grace is “given to the humble,” and the minute we start thinking we’re picking it up like a paycheck, pride and arrogance remove the value of the gift.
2. It can’t continue to allow us license to be stupid. Once again, the Good Book tells us that we can’t “continue in sin,” hoping that grace will arrive by oxcart, just in time to cover our butts.
3. And finally, grace can’t brag. The minute we start telling stories about how God has supernaturally protected us from our own foolishness instead of silently breathing a prayer of gratitude due to unmerited favor, we not only become obnoxious, but heaven also stops returning our phone calls.
God’s grace is sufficient for us–and therefore is determined by Him, not by the accumulation of our mounting pleas.
I think we would do well to take a season in our society to walk away from grace and encourage people to rediscover the power and majesty of personal responsibility.
- I don’t think it will diminish grace, because when we are looking to our own hearts, we are humble. God gives grace.
- When we’re checking out our own motives, we stop fostering foolishness and sin in our lives. Grace is permitted to hang around.
- And if we will cease screaming and yelling about grace being everlasting, we will discover that the amount sent our way is always sufficient.
I have noticed of late that not many companies talk about “grace periods” anymore. For grace given to a lazy fool is always wasted, always taken for granted and always defined by the sluggard as a blank check … for stupidity.
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