What’s So Annoying About Grace?

Off the top of your head think of someone who really irritates you. Someone who you do not enjoy being around. Someone who just seems to suck the joy out of the room. Someone who makes you want to see what happens if you were to focus on happy memories and shout ‘Expecto Patronum!’ Or, if you prefer, someone who makes you regret not destroying all their Horcruxes when you had the chance.

I can think of two people like that.

Chances are you can, as well. Maybe you can name several. Frankly I am depressed that I could think of one regular, everyday person who makes me consider combating them with magic powers, much less two. Nonetheless, we all have people that challenge our patience. We all have people in our everyday lives that frustrate us, who through their words and actions, are hurtful.

And as much as I would like to throw down some witty remarks or maybe a shield charm (to those of you who may have issues with Harry Potter, I apologize and that was the last joke), what I really need to do is to show them grace. What those cranky Dementors need is grace (I guess there was one more reference in me; as you will see if you keep reading, I am in need of grace as well).

One of the most well known Bible verses is John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ The problem with it being so well ingrained in my mind is that I completely forget that Jesus said ‘the world’, not ‘Karl’.

When I chose to accept what Jesus said that I needed, I said that I would obey him and allow him to change me and make me more like him. And while Jesus continues to work in my heart, I still forget that I am greatly in need. I am saved but not perfect; I need to remember that because of the grace that I have been shown and am shown on a daily, hourly, secondly basis, I need to give that grace in return, whether others people need to know it or not.

So tomorrow, when I want to say something snotty or throw a punch that could have come straight out of Street Fighter II, hopefully I will remember how I hurt or disappointed the people that I love this week, and how they didn’t dropkick me in the face. And hopefully, I will be able to live up to their example.

What’s so annoying about grace? (Full disclosure here, I totally forgot about coming back to that until now, or mentioning that Philip Yancey has a book entitled ‘What’s So Amazing About Grace?’ that I hear is super awesome). It’s that I am not supposed to keep it to myself, but to share it. That’s annoying because I fail at sharing grace in so many ways on a daily basis, but like I said in that previous paragraph/false ending that was caused by sloppy writing, tomorrow is a brand new day. (Unless it is somehow July 28^th, 1985 tomorrow.)