Grace

So, I daily find myself broken by the concept of grace. I've never really been one of those "woe is me a sinner" kind of people. Its not that I don't think I'm a sinner, but I don't understand why people dwell on their own sin so much...repent, and move on. I realize its not as easy as that sometimes, but I'd rather focus on Christ and on grace, rather than on me and my sin.

But, I digress from grace (don't we all?).

Grace. What a simple, foundational concept to our Christian faith. Words cannot describe this, and yet we always try. I think the best visions of grace are not in sermons, no matter how eloquent. They are in the eyes of a child, immediately after being disciplined, yet the child clearly wants nothing more than a hug to realize they're still loved. Grace is seen in an overworked parent taking the five minutes to play an undignified game of tag with a four year old. A child's laugh. A crisp, clear sunset.

Grace is me spending hours on a sermon, and yet still being unsatisfied with the outcome...getting angry with myself for not putting in the hours I "should"...and yet, on Sunday morning, seeing the dry bones come together, tendons and sinews spring forth, and skin come on the bones. And the bones then move, breathed with new life.

Grace is being freed from your sin, so it no longer has to take up the majority of your life. Grace is the chains of bondage to laziness, to greed, to lust, to whatever...shattered and left to rust into nothing. Grace is the freedom to run on new legs, given, free of charge, to a paralytic.

I choose to live in grace, in that gap beyond my own abilities, the place called 'faith'. I can't live their on my own, and trust me, I've tried. I have tried to live larger, live bigger, live better than my abilities would allow...but, it only works out when I do this with grace.

I still feel like I've come up short in my description, but words can't describe a concept like grace. But, would we want them to? Grace is not something to be describe, or discussed, or analyzed. It is rather something that must be experienced and lived, beyond ourselves, and immersed wholly in God's love.