Bizaro World: Grace

H/T to Steven Manskar for the link.

I have a problem. Okay, laugh if you want. Some of ya'll could write an essay on my problems.

I have a problem with grace. I have a real problem with grace. No matter what I do, know matter how far I wander, no matter how absurd my ideas, no matter how idiotic I sound, no matter where I find myself...ultimately I come back to this point: grace.

Dr. Tom Davis at Due West UMC, introduced the analogy that has become etched in my heart and mind. It goes something like this,

You're driving too fast and get pulled by a police officer. The officer gets your license and he writes you a ticket. That is justice.

Or on occasion...

Instead of writing you a ticket, the officer gives you a warning. That, we call mercy.

Of course, there is bizaro world...

Instead of either of those options, the officer comes up to your car and hands you an all expense vacation to your favorite destination. That, is grace.

Are you with me here? Does that make little to no sense at all? It makes as much sense as this story here:

"[It] is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. "When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. "And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, 'You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.' And so they went. "Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. "And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he *said to them, 'Why have you been standing here idle all day long?' "They *said to him, 'Because no one hired us.' He *said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.'

"When evening came, the owner of the vineyard *said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.' "When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. "When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. "When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, 'These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.'

"But he answered and said to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 'Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 'Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?' "So the last shall be first, and the first last." (Matthew 20:1-16 NASB)

I have a problem that I can't ever seem to offer grace like the way Jesus did. I don't seem ever to be as gracious as I want to be. I don't extend the benefit of the doubt like I'd like to.

Justice, I know and respect. Mercy, I've seen and honor. It is grace that causes me problems. Maybe it is this that causes me problems; that though grace has been offered to me, it is not by my nature to give it.



May I Ask? What in the faith journey causes you problems?

May I Suggest? Be authentic with yourself. Name it and then search out more info and insight. Don't take my blog as an end to my journey, it is just a lay over.