Everyday Grace

I’d like to start by apologizing for not posting articles for more than a week, nearly two in fact.  I have been busy, I have been working on a project that is exciting me and, of course, sometimes there are just time pressures.  I will share more about the research project I am doing in the coming weeks but I am excited about a concept I am calling “Organic Evangelism” which I define evangelism as something I am, not something I am doing.  More later.

Yet grace continually intrudes into my thinking in a variety of ways, some good, some jarring and sad.  But such is life, grace lessons are everywhere.  We don’t need to seek them, we need simply to open our eyes to see them.  Here is an example.

One of the blessings of working nights is that a lot of our customers are “regulars”; people who, like me, live their lives off the schedule of most of humanity.  Getting to know some of these unique people over time has been a joy.

One example is a young newly married couple who come in regularly to do their weekly shopping.  Like a lot of first-year married folks, and even a few of us old timers, they seem to still be on their honeymoon all the time.  It has been fun getting to know them over time.

Last week, around 1 AM, the wife came in alone.  She told me her husband was out of town for work and would be back in the morning.  She was buying the ingredients for a special dessert her husband likes but that, until now, she did not know how to make.  She had called her mother-in-law earlier in the evening and obtained the recipe and she planned to make it for him and have it ready when he came home.  Pretty sweet, huh?  You could see her excitement, and love, as she planned her surprise.

Some time later, around 3 AM, she came in again.  This time she was distressed.  It turns out her planned surprise had gone awry.  It had not turned out.  She had called her mother-in-law a few minutes earlier (I am sure mom loved that) and learned what had gone wrong.  She was now going to try again.

What struck me was her distress.  She was truly upset, beating herself up for her “failure” to do it right.  She was grimly determined to do better but fearful she might not be able to pull it off.  (Cutting to the end of the story, she did it!) 

What was odd to me was the fact that I had seen this couple many times and, frankly, the fact that he was madly in love with her was written all over him.  She could have served him a mud pie and he’d have thanked her.  Yet she sought perfection and was beating herself up over her inability to obtain it.

I am sure you know where I am going with this; this is like our relationship with God.  He is madly in love with us.  We love Him and want to serve Him.  But sometimes we mess up – badly.  We are right to want to do better, right to want to try again.  But if we act as if our perfection is the key to His love for us we are like this poor newlywed, allowing ourselves to suffer self-recrimination and losing sight of the joy in the endless overpowering love that is actually coming to us from God.

Have you messed up recently?  Go buy the ingredients and bake the dessert again.  But don’t think, even for a moment, that God’s love for you is at risk.

Last night, at church, we had a great time of discussion with Marty and Melissa Childers in advance of the second mission trip to Bolivia, set for just a few weeks from now.  Their helpful input was focused on two areas to help us prepare for the trip and, incidentally, help us in our efforts to reach others here.  One key topic discussed was the concept of worldview. 

A short definition of worldview is the set of assumptions and beliefs that constitute a filter through which we understand the world around us.  As a 21^st century, boomer, American, Christian who has spent many years overseas I have a worldview shaped by the events, experiences and teachings of my life.  Yours may overlap with mine, but also may differ in significant ways.  The key that Melissa presented to us is that our own worldview is, for the most part, invisible to us.  We see the world through it but don’t see it directly without effort and study.  The analogy is they are like the lenses of a pair of glasses.  My glasses affect how I see the world but I don’t “see” them as I look out.

OK, that is interesting, so what?  What difference does it make and what is its importance for grace?  It makes all the difference in the world.  A good deal of misunderstandings in our world stem from people with different worldviews interpreting the same events in different ways.  People respond not to events but to their understanding of the meaning of those events. 

In evangelism and witness, worldview differences account for a great deal of the frustration, failure and disappointment in our efforts.  We don’t understand why the things we see as obvious are not clear to others, we are surprised when they are indifferent or even angry about things we see as urgent, we see their objections and concerns as irrelevant to the core issue of salvation.

Worldview varies not just from culture to culture, but from age group to age group, from region to region in our country, and even in the personal experiences of individuals.  I’ve come to see that as I’ve spent many years away from where I was born, in circumstances that vary greatly, that I have a different worldview than my own twin sister back in New York.

Indeed, worldviews present such barriers that it would be easy to assume we can’t communicate at all, let alone witness.  But this is where grace comes in.  Grace tells us to relax and learn when people act or respond to us in ways that are puzzling or even insulting.  Grace tells us that a true understanding of the worldview of another benefits us even when we disagree.  Grace allows us to seek and find, with joy, common understandings with those with whom we disagree.  Grace allows us to communicate “with gentleness and respect” to those who hold values that are abhorrent to us. 

But grace does one more important thing.  It takes my weak and imperfect effort to communicate and, through the Holy Spirit, uses it to God’s glory.  This is not to imply that I shouldn’t care at all about how my efforts are received.  I shouldn’t just say what I have to say in the way I want to say it and not worry who gets hurt or angry.  But ultimately God is in control….even of my worldview-saturated communication efforts.

Baseball history was made last night.  In the entire 135 year history of major league baseball there had been only 20 perfect games; only twenty times when it had been 27 up, 27 out, end of story.  Last night was the 21^st.  Only it wasn’t.

The pitcher was a 28 year old man named Armando Gallaraga.  He seemed a most unlikely candidate for major league history.  Growing up in Venezuela he signed a baseball contact at 16 but took five years to get out of the rookie league.  He bounced from team to team before ending up in Detroit. 

And there, on a warm night, he was pitching a perfect game.  26 outs had already been recorded.  One more and there would be the first perfect game in the Tigers 107 year history.  And then there was a ground ball to the first baseman, who fielded it cleanly.  The stadium was quiet, sensing that this was it, they were about to see perfection.  Gallaraga ran to cover the bag and took the perfect toss from the first baseman, stepped on the bag, and threw his hands in the air in joy.  The throw was not even close, he was clearly out, and perfection was in the bag and the history books.

Only it wasn’t.  Inexplicably the umpire, Jim Joyce, signaled safe.  On ESPN they showed the reply over and over again in high definition slow motion.  The call was a “no-brainer.”  He was clearly out and one of the game’s best umpires had totally blown the call.  It will go down in history as one of the worst calls in a critical setting in baseball history.  Even Joyce, heartbroken, admitted it later.  “I blew the call.  I cost that kid a perfect game.” 

Today the baseball world is abuzz with the story.  The theme is “He was robbed!” There are calls to allow instant reply to allow the call to be overturned.  Calls to fire a long-term and very good umpire.   For all I know, there are probably calls for the invention of a time machine so we can go back and do it over.  But for me the best story occurred right after the blown call.

The camera had cut to Gallaraga’s face to record his joy in the game and instead caught his reaction to the injustice.  He slumped his shoulder and….smiled.  No screaming.  No stomping.  No protests.  After the game he said that he wasn’t sure about the call but that he was proud of his game and looked forward to telling his son about it.  When told of Joyce’s admission and remorse he wanted to tell him not to worry, that people make mistakes.

There may have been better games pitched in baseball history.  But I don’t think there has been a better example of grace.  In truth, there is no such thing as a perfect game, or a perfect anything in our human world.  Gallaraga seems to know, perhaps from his hard life, what many of us forget; that life will always be imperfect.

I am sure there is an ache in Gallaraga’s heart today and even more sure there is an ache in Joyce’s heart.  But on a warm Detroit night we saw something even more important than perfection.  We saw the grace of forgiveness exercised by a young Venezuelan pitcher.

Our hearts yearn for forgiveness and grace.  And God gives it generously.  But last night we saw that we too can give it when it is most needed.  Oh for the grace of God to express grace like Armando Gallaraga.

Once again, the religious wars have made the news.  On May 31^st a federal judge ruled that Enfield High School in Connecticut cannot hold its graduation ceremony in the sanctuary of First Cathedral, a 11,000 member church in the town, as there was a “likelihood of irreparable harm” if the non-Christian student of the high school were “subjected to religious symbols as a price of graduation.”  I don’t suppose I need to tell you that secular anti-religious groups are thrilled while a number of conservative Christian groups are expressing open outrage.  There is talk of an appeal in the name of religious freedom.

 Sigh.  OK, let’s start by admitting that it is beyond ludicrous to think that seeing a “religious symbol” is going to cause life-long emotional damage to a young adult.  (I have this image in my head of a disheveled old man in tattered clothes lying in a gutter saying “I was fine until I was eighteen and I accidentally spotted a cross at high school graduation.”)  But these are the times we live in and such hyperbole is typical in public discussion.

 Let’s dig a little deeper though.  We can start by saying that for the past two years the graduation ceremony was held in this sanctuary as the school athletic facilities were under construction and there was no reasonably priced alternative.  This year the school board, citing the completion of their own facilities, voted to move the ceremony back home.  Clearly they were ready to resume normal ceremonies that had been standard for generations.

 However, the Family Institute of Connecticut and others lobbied to “stand up for religious rights” and pressured successfully to have the ruling overturned as the board voted to move the service back to the church.  The FIC called the decision “a victory for religious rights.” 

 Put another way, our side fired the first shots in this battle.  Is it all that shocking when the ACLU and others fired back?  In any event, a lawsuit was filed in federal court and the recent ruling is the result.  So now the other guys are crowing and our side is sulking.

 But let’s keep digging a bit more.  It seems that, in order to hold the ceremony at all, the church had to “remove religious symbols” from their sanctuary, which they apparently made a heartfelt attempt to do; so much so that the process came to be called in some quarters “deJesusification.”  Sadly, the judge ruled that their efforts were not enough, you could still tell this was a church.

 And the news spread around the world.  A search of the subject on Google yielded 326,000 results.  Now, I am trying to think of just what “religious right” would have been protected if our side had won and a church so stripped or religious symbols that you could no longer tell it was a church had hosted the service.  None come to mind.  I am equally clueless as to what Kingdom breakthrough would have occurred if we had succeeded in slipping a Christian image in front of a graduating Jew or agnostic. 

 Here is the way I see it.  We picked a fight and lost.  Had we won we would have accomplished nothing.  That we fought at all polarized the high school and cast a pall over the graduation.  In losing we cemented another decision into legal restrictions on freedom of faith.  I read an article on this controversy to my friends at work last night.  One guy responded in a way that I think is most likely typical of many in our country – “They are all a bunch of idiots.”

 I don’t know the slightest thing about First Cathedral.  I presume it is a fine church and I am sorry that it got caught up in this mess.  Indeed, it seems from what I read that the well-meaning church has simply got caught up in larger agendas on both sides.  But they do have 11,000 members.  Wouldn’t it have been great if, instead of fighting to host the service, each family in the church made it their purpose to reach out to one senior from the school, congratulate them on their graduation, and wish them well in the name of Jesus?

A few weeks ago I was sitting with a friend at Panera Bread.  Just across the aisle was a table with two other men.  They both had their Bibles, and they seemed to be discussing things of the Lord.  I really wasn’t paying much attention but I was happy to see them there as it is a testimony when believers show their faith in public. 

Then it happened.  One guy, who had been drinking a large coffee, got up to leave, carrying his coffee cup with him.  No big deal I thought, I will quite often finish my coffee on the road home.  Then I heard him tell his friend that he always brings his empty cup home with him.  In that way, so he said, “I can stop by each day this week and get a free refill on my way to work.”

I understood what he was saying.  Since Panera allows you to refill your coffee at your leisure while you are there, people are going for refills all the time.  He could easily slip into the morning crowd and help himself to a free cup everyday without arousing suspicion.

I was frankly indignant.  I wondered what to do.  But, as he was gone, that was his “goodbye” comment to his buddy, he was out of the building before I fully grasped the whole matter.  I’ve been thinking about that incident for weeks now with the particular emphasis on this question:  How does grace respond to an incident like this?

Now of the title of this blog was “Everyday Law” I know exactly how I would respond.  I would get up, follow the guy out, point out that he was stealing, a sin, and tell him that he ought to stop.  That is the law response.  It is characteristic of the law that it correctly diagnoses the problem, the sin of stealing, and proposes the correct answer, stop that.  The law is inherently good.

The problem is not that the law is wrong, but that it is powerless.  A law response raises a host of issues.  For one, even if I did confront him there is no telling the results.  I didn’t know him, had no relationship with him.  It is doubtful my “tsk tsk” would result in changed behavior.  Secondly, where do I stop confronting?  Do I need to go back and confront his buddy too because he didn’t confront him?  In a world of endless sin, how many and which ones do I confront?

Most Christians believe that it is their duty to confront sin.  But if we did, we’d never be able to stop.  Over a century ago H.L. Mencken defined a Bible-believing Christian as someone who “lives with the gnawing fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.”  We simply cannot confront every sin we see.  And when we do, it leaves us open to charges of hypocrisy as there is sin in us too.  However correct the law’s diagnosis, it does not provide a solution.

So how does grace respond?  Frankly, I am not sure.  One thing that makes grace more difficult than law is that it rarely gives us “black and white” answers.  If you have some suggestions on a grace response to this incident, let me know what they are.  But here are some grace principles that I see:

1. Grace accepts the reality of sin.  We know we live in a sin-filled world and we simply cannot stop them all.  We don’t like it, but we accept it.
2. Grace is humble.  The grace-filled response includes the trembling awareness that we ourselves are sinners.
3. Grace expresses itself in love and always seeks restoration.  It is all well and good, if I called that guy a thief, for me to say I was doing it in love but I doubt it would be true and I am certain he would not feel it.  It irritates me how often Christians can say the most hurtful things and claim they are doing it in love.
4. Grace always includes forgiveness.  It doesn’t propose how he can change his actions so he can get forgiveness, it presents forgiveness as a basis on which he can change.
5. Grace tends to be most effective when you have a history of expressing love.  Jesus could express grace and forgiveness because he was publically known for his grace.  For us it usually means we need to have a relationship in which to express grace-responses.

There may be other principles and if you have some, let me know.  But I confess that, on that day at Panera, I was challenged to think through my grace principles once again.

In the summer of the year I turned nine, two “unsavory” influences entered my life.  Until that point I had been the dutiful son, well mostly dutiful, of conservative religious parents.  We attended a good church that could have been described as fundamentalist or legalist, although until that summer I was not aware of what those terms might have meant.  All I knew was that I had been taught an extensive list of things I should do and things I shouldn’t do.  I accepted this list essentially without question.

On the “must not” portion of the list were two activities I had not given much thought to, science fiction and rock and roll.  In both, my parents were probably not worried about me in the least.  But that summer, everything changed.  The first pernicious influence, science fiction, came during an innocent summer trip to the public library.  It was a lazy weekday morning and my best friend was on vacation so, like many kids before and since, I sort of whined to my mom that I was bored.  She suggested that I go to the library.

So there I was wandering around the juvenile section when I stumbled across a novel called “Have Space Suit, Will Travel.”  The story was about an American teenager of the future (oddly, now the past) who had won a spacesuit in a TV game show contest and his eventual accidental interstellar adventures as a result.  I sat on the floor of the library that morning and read most of it.  After lunch, I came back and read the rest.  And, alas, I was hooked on science fiction.  I was soon reading everything the library had and scrounging for other stuff to read.  One place I found it was in comic books, which were also on my church’s forbidden list, but as I consider that infection secondary I am not listing it here.

Were this not bad enough, more ruin was ahead that summer.  On a lazy August afternoon I was again bored.  I guess this was pretty close to my normal state in those days.  We had just gotten a TV set.  As it happens, TV was also on the list of pernicious influences we should avoid but, as I was not the one who brought the thing home, I was not ready to take credit for the ruin it brought to my life.  It did, however, open the door to the evils of rock and roll.  I turned the TV on, expecting to see a game show that had played in that afternoon time slot.  But, to my surprise, it was not there.  Instead I saw the initial national broadcast of a new show called “American Bandstand.” 

Once again I was hooked.  To my parent’s dismay I also figured out that I could get rock and roll on the radio so this influence didn’t end when “Bandstand” went off.  And so there I was, steadily consuming not one but two horrible influences.  I know for a fact that prayers were offered for my deliverance from both these evils (and probably from comics and TV too but I can’t be sure about that) within some segments of my church.

In any event, thus far those prayers have not been answered.  The direct result of the opposition of some in my church, and to a lesser degree my parents, actually had an influence that was the opposite of what they desired.  Instead of repenting of my “sins” I became sneaky about them.  I learned to read and listen in ways that they did not figure out. 

The sad thing is that while I will debate to this day that neither science fiction nor rock and roll is inherently evil, I know that deception is.  I take responsibility for my sin, I was the deceiver.  However the whole episode drove home a point to me that has since crystallized into my passion for grace.  It has taught me to agree with Paul that law not only does not work, it kills.  The effort to control my external actions drove me to internal, sinful, rebellion.  And this is how human nature works. 

I have no way to judge how I would have responded if my parents or more particularly my church, had sat down with me, affirmed their love and support, and tried to reason with me on these actions of mine.  But I do know that trying to force behavioral obedience drove me further from it and the church.  It was not till years later when I met someone who expressed strong moral standards with an attitude of grace that I returned to the faith of my youth.

Thanks, Peggy.

Have you ever been to a peewee league baseball game?  I am talking about a game played by kids 6 to 7 years old.  If you haven’t, it is quite a show.  Fly balls are generally caught only when the ball just happens to fall into the glove.  If the ball is thrown to a given fielder there is at least a 50-50 chance he will just duck.  When a fielder does pick up a batted ball he knows to throw it, but seldom where to throw it or how to throw it, so it is always an exciting experience to see where it goes.  Runners are the same, they often take off running on what seems to be a whim and just as often stand there like statues when the ball is hit.  I’d say close to 90% of the time a ball is hit it will whiz by kids who are standing there daydreaming.  Nevertheless, it always seems that kids are having a good time, unless of course, parents or coaches yell at them.  The game is just great fun to watch.

But more fun still is watching, or more accurately listening to, the adults in attendance.  On every play two or three coaches on each team start shouting instructions to the various players involved.  Almost every parent in attendance is watching his or her kid and they too begin to shout instructions to their sons and daughters; each intent on making sure their kid is not the one who does some of the funny things in the first paragraph.  The end result is a cacophony of well-meaning and basically good instructions flying through the air.  The odds of the kids understanding, let alone following, these instructions is near zero.

The interesting thing is that, when the game is over, you can seldom tell by looking at the two teams who won and who lost.  Both seem happy.  The game was an experience not a contest and now, since they are probably going to go out for ice cream, things are even better.

So, other than encouraging attendance at kids’ baseball games, what is my point?  I think that the Christian life for most evangelicals is a very similar experience.  We know that in our Christian walk we are like the kids.  We are well-meaning and doing something we really want to do and really want to enjoy.  But we are going to mess up more often than not.  And as we go, the air is filled with shouted well-meaning, good instructions.  “Read your Bible more!  Pray every day!  Serve the Lord!  Witness!  Get involved in missions!  Love your wives, submit to your husbands, obey your parents!  Be generous with your giving!  Trust the Lord!  Worship with a whole heart!  Discover your spiritual gifts!  Read this book/take this course/attend this seminar about discipleship/evangelism/parenting/marriage/living the Christian life!”  The result is a cacophony not unlike the peewee game.  Sadly, we’ve come to see that cacophony as the normal evangelical life.

Each kid in the game has the desire to be the best player he can be and the dream to be the best there is, to be the hero of the game.  And the same is true for each believer in Christ.  In neither case are we dealing with a lack of desire.  But we are weak.  Or at least I know I am.  And I don’t think a chorus of “ought to” shouts from the evangelical bleachers helps.  We need leaders who desire to get to know us, and to help us know Jesus.  We need friends who will walk with us on our journey.  We need people who will patiently and calmly teach us, often over and over, not just with shouted instructions but by modeling these behaviors for us.  We need people who are willing to let us make mistakes and go on loving us.  We need patience, we need time, we need calm and steady friends.  And we need a body of believers that values going out for ice cream after the game more than winning and losing.

If I was to give this article a subtitle it would be “How a younger generation is moving toward a more pro-life position on abortion and what we Christians are doing to try and stop it.”  But before I get into that, let me share the good news.  Recent polls show that among younger women aged 18-29 an increasing percentage are calling themselves pro-life and there is now more than a majority, even among non-Christians, that think abortion is a moral issue. 

As I said, this is good news.  In fact, at a time when Christians are increasingly seen in a negative light, to see more people sharing our views on this issue is great.  How has this come to be?  Are they being persuaded by the overpowering logic and compassion of our arguments?  No.  In the poll many of the young women make this clear, they still doubt and distrust pro-life leaders and organizations. 

So why are they changing?  It’s a combination of two things.  One is advancing technology and the second is the intransigence of the pro-choice side.  As technology, particularly sonograms, improve it is easier and easier to see clear images of unborn children with tiny features, beating hearts and obvious movements.  In the face of this, pro-choice leaders continue to use agenda-motivated terms like “unwanted fetal tissue” to describe these tiny children and this is turning off these women.

One would think that these are exciting times in the pro-life camp and that deep and sincere outreach would be taking place to these young women to help solidify their views and support them.  Perhaps the tide may be turning on this decades-long stalemate.  But we don’t see much evidence of this.  Pro-life forces continue to see this issue as needing to be fought on two fronts, politics and protest.  And, if I may say so, they are fighting these battles in ungracious ways.

Just witness the fate of the hapless pro-life congressman, Bart Stupek.  He and a few other Democrats succeeded in getting pro-life wording into the House version of the recent health care bill.  When he later agreed to keep this pro-life wording out of the bill in exchange for the signing of a Presidential order giving the same wording he faced death threats and charges of “baby-killer.”  You may disagree with Stupek but the baby-killer charges are outrageous ungrace. 

On the protest front pro-life forces continue to waste time and effort on fruitless campaigns.  Whether it is sending thousands of red envelopes to the White House that went unread and did nothing more than annoy the mail room and custodial staff, or heartless protests harassing troubled pregnant girls, they accomplish nothing but to make us look uncaring or silly.

Grace teaches us that this battle needs to be fought and won in person-to-person encounters.  When a young mother-to-be brings the DVD of the sonogram of her unborn child to show her friends at work, when we support in personal ways unwed pregnant women or parents struggling to adopt, when poor families find their church a refuge and support, or in a dozen other caring ways pro-life people become friends and not faceless protestors we win these individuals.

It is hard to express the joy you can have when you see an adorable baby in the arms of a proud mother who had considered abortion and you know you were there for them in their struggle.  And, even better, as we move in that direction of making our abortion stance personal and real there will be opportunities to reach out to the young women in the survey above who are on the verge of being more pro-life.

We are far enough into this blog that I thought I would stop and do something of a review.  If you are a regular reader you may see themes developing in this blog but I thought it might be good to list some of those themes on various issues.  So here goes:

1. Witness and evangelism.  I can’t imagine how I can call myself grace-based and not be evangelistic.  But I see a distinction between traditional evangelism and grace evangelism.  I need to say this carefully because it may sound offensive but grace evangelism is friendship-based and says, in effect, “Because I care about this person, I want them to know Jesus.”  Now just about anyone who is an active witness would say the same thing but grace evangelism has this distinction – the relationship was not created for the declared purpose of evangelism and is not affected if that person does not accept Christ.  If you read most friendship evangelism guides they talk of intentionality in the relationship development.  They say, in effect, the opposite of the quote above, or “Because I want them to know Jesus, I care about this person.”
2. Bible study.  Again, because I see myself as grace-based I can’t imagine a life not based on regular reading of and reflection on Scripture.  And because I want to understand what God is telling us in the Bible, I am thankful for commentaries, study helps and good methodologies for properly understanding the Word of God.  However, I see the Bible more as a story God wants to tell us than a book He wants us to study.  Put another way, I see God’s purpose in Scripture less as saying “Here, do an intensive study of this book and you will know what I want you to know.” and more as saying “This is what I want to tell you about Me and my love for you.” 
3. Doctrine and Denominations.  Because I see sound doctrine as essential, and multiple denominations as acceptable, I think the idea of having a personal doctrinal understanding, and the desire to fellowship and worship with those who agree, as a valid and even critical part of the Christian life.  Nonetheless, and here I don’t want to mince words, I believe that because the world sees our denominational struggles and animosity, this may be the biggest single obstacle to effective evangelism.  Taking it a step further into the making of dangerous statements, I suspect that a great deal of our doctrinal squabbles occur in areas that God does not see as essential to our faith.  For example, God communicates in Scripture a compelling, no-doubt-about-it, picture of who Jesus is.  He does this because it is important to Him that we understand this.  Any rational person examining the disputes on such areas as baptism, the role of women, tongues, the end times, etc. has to conclude that God has not slammed the door shut on understandings other than our own.  I can’t see this as a result of a loving God making us study harder and more to “get it right”, but rather as an indication that it is not essential (maybe nice but not essential) to God.
4. In the world but not of it.  I have no compelling desire to “speak against” the sins of this world in a confrontational way.  I can and do grieve about the sins of this world but I don’t see the role of the grace-based Christian as one who is always pointing an angry finger at others.  I feel that my best witness in these areas is to be distinctly different in a steadfast but calm and loving way, particularly when my differences cause me to make decisions and take actions that seem self-sacrificing to the world.  I also want to be continually and intentionally engaged in a wider non-Christian world on a personal level, even if it exposes me to things about which I am uneasy.
5. Grace is everywhere.  While this world is dominated by ungrace, conflict and animosity there are examples of grace in action, the need for grace, and the hunger for grace, everywhere.  All we need to do is open our eyes to see them.  The more we see these things, the more we will be grace-based and confident in a loving God even if the world seems crazy and uncaring.  If we want to be, like Paul, apostles of grace, then asking God to “Show me your grace” means more than “be kind to me”.  It also means “Let me see these grace examples with open eyes and an open heart.”  The more we see grace in action, the more we will be equipped to be those apostles of grace.
6. Being a giver of grace is great fun.  I toyed with trying to sound more spiritual by saying “…is a great blessing.” but couldn’t pull it off.  Being able to show kindness, to speak peace, to extend courtesy and compassion in the name of Christ, is such great fun that it is hard to not giggle.  For example, as a cashier at work, I frequently find customers struggling to get exact change for their payment or to avoid getting, like, 96 cents in change.  So I have this ministry of giving small amounts of money to people day in and day out.    I can’t tell you how much fun that is.   Yes, God has opened some doors through this but even when all I get is an incredulous stare it is still fun.

In essence, these are the principles of Everyday Grace.  I don’t claim them to be authoritative or exhaustive.  You may disagree; you may add others of your own.  I’d like to think that grace makes me OK with that.

They are two of the most well-known characters in the Bible.  We know them as “The rich young man” and “The woman caught in adultery.”  Like so many people in the Biblical narrative, the spotlight of Biblical history shines brightly on these two individuals for one brief episode and it seems as if all of heaven and history looks on.  Then they move out of the spotlight and disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.

Their times in the spotlight begin and end quite differently.  The young man comes eagerly, the Bible says “running” to Jesus, seeking the last details needed to assure his place in heaven.  The woman, however, is dragged to Jesus, almost surely fighting every step of the way, fearing her imminent death.  Undoubtedly the young man came already in possession of the high esteem of the community.  The woman was most likely a pariah even before she was dragged to Jesus.

At the end their situations are reversed.  The rich young man “goes away sad” seemingly unwilling to follow Jesus’ instructions to sell all that he has.  But the adulterous woman finds her life amazingly spared and leaves with Jesus’ last words in her ears “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.” 

Commentators generally get the lesson right on these stories.  If you bring your own good works but not a heart yielded to Jesus, you will go away sad.  If you cast yourself on the mercy and grace of Jesus you will receive both. 

But my question is what happens next in the lives of these two individuals?  Does the woman, her life transformed by her experience of grace, go on to be a life-long devoted follower of Christ, forever forsaking her wicked ways?  Does the young man, bitter and disappointed, forever place his faith in his good works?  

Or is it possible that the woman, getting back to her old home and friends, still rejected by the “good” people, returns to a life of sin?  And it is possible that the young man, after long and hard reflection, comes to realize that no works are good enough and no riches are worth new life in Christ?

We simply don’t know.  The Bible finishes the point it was making at the end of the story and does not record their future lives, any more than it records ours.  We must always remember that the end of the narrative is not the end of the story, just the end of what God chooses to record.

But for me, the grace-lesson of this silence is easy.  Yogi Berra summed it up this way:  “It ain’t over till it’s over.”  We don’t need to assume that the young man’s point of dismal failure ends God’s interest in him, and we can’t assume that one moment of a shining “spiritual high” for the woman assures her salvation.  In fact, there is no mention whatsoever that she was saved.

Personalizing this, I don’t want to coast through life on moments of spiritual exhilaration and don’t need to be defeated by moments of spiritual failure.  The truth is that we will have both in our walk with God.  Spiritual high points are great and we rejoice in them.  But we need to remember that grace is sufficient even in the everyday plodding of our lives.  And failure, even catastrophic failure, does not need to be the end.  God is always ready to forgive and restore.

Who knows?  Maybe at some point in the eternal fellowship of heaven, you may have an opportunity to sit and talk to both these individuals and marvel with them about the grace of God.