Sometimes
I start talking and I can’t stop.
I
get going on a tangent, complain and harp and let loose the ideas that have
been rolling around in my head, the comments that I keep bottled up for fear of
appearing rude, mean, or worse: uneducated.
Usually
I have an audience of one – my husband.
He’s
a good audience. He knows when I’m just
blowing off steam and when I need to be reined in with a comment or two of his
own. He listens to my oratories without
much interruption – not that there’s much of a chance for that, but still.
His
listening is a show of grace – he could walk away while I blather, but he
doesn’t. He settles in, no matter how painful.
In the meantime, I learn from his example. I appreciate his show of grace so much.
Things
in the world are scary right now. We see
attacks within our towns and cities, sometimes between cops and kids, sometimes
between handfuls of gunmen and crowds of people. Humans fight every day. We see what happens on a global scale when
there is a lack of grace.
“I
can’t even with my Facebook feed right now – so much hatred” – say those who choose
to rely on social media for connection, news, and information. We all have opinions, and those with the most
radical, divisive ones have the loudest voices.
The rest of us are offended, scared of what people are capable of,
surprised to discover certain things about the people we thought we knew. We cut them out of our social media lives
with the swiftness of death’s arrival.
We
receive less and less grace from our fellow humans every day, and we cocoon
ourselves tighter and tighter with those who share our beliefs, creating more
division. We respond to a lack of grace
with our own, and say we are protecting our minds and hearts.
What
else can we do?
“You
can’t change what anyone else believes by posting articles and links on social
media,” says my husband. “People aren’t there
to change their minds.” We read what we
want to read. Websites offer self-satisfying
clicks to obtain the information we want, to get support for our own opinions.
Gone are the days of subtly being
influenced by both sides of a story in the newspaper; we can push a button to hear
exactly what we want to hear, and click away when we don’t.
We
find ourselves more apt to point fingers and warn and cut out, less apt to help
along and love. We forget that we all
want life, love, and health – all wonderful things that many of us take for
granted – and focus on the things that separate us. Each of us thinks that our own opinion is the
right one, and X out the ones that disagree. Dissent occurs.
We
are missing one ingredient when this happens: grace.
When
we cut people out because of their differing opinions, we withhold grace. When we hear what they have to say and
respond with respect, we offer it. Just
as God sent his son to earth to offer us the gift of salvation despite any good
we have done, we can respond with grace to those friends and loved ones who
offer thoughts and opinions that are drastically different than our own. We can each do this, no matter which side we’re
on. It’s work, and it’s
individually-based, but it can be done.
We
might not have the loudest voice in shouting our grace, but it might have a
huge impact in our interpersonal relationships.
Grace can beget grace – those
of us who believe in Christ’s gift live it every day.
Why
not start practicing it today?
* * *
All praise
to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.
Even before
he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without
fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own
family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.
This is what
he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise
God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He
is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood
of his Son and forgave our sins. He
has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.
God has now
revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own
good pleasure. And this is the plan: At the right time he will
bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven
and on earth.
Ephesians 1:3-10 (NLT)
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