Grace

Measure of a Melody

Not long ago I wrote about God’s grace being sufficient for my frequent failures and insufficiencies. Not surprisingly, the tables have turned and here I am learning about what God’s grace means for the people in my life.

I’ve been really edgy recently. Work has been demanding, Christmas preparations have been stressful, I’ve crammed every day with more things than I have time to do and I’ve become worn out and irritable. Naturally, my thoughts follow suit and my attitude goes down the tubes. Instead of enjoying the beauty of freshly fallen snow, I snarled at the idea of cold temperatures and bad drivers. Instead of preparing my heart to celebrate Christ’s birth, I found myself being judgmental, and irrational, and ugly.

I often struggle to offer patience and grace to people who offend or irritate me. Even if I don’t say them out loud, my thoughts run wild with bitterness and condemnation. I seem to always make it my personal responsibility to passively teach someone a lesson when I feel like they are being unreasonable or rude. I let myself get so caught up and annoyed with the smallest things that really have absolutely no bearing on the kingdom of God and my responsibility to his gospel.

After a particularly frustrating day, just as I was cranking up the heat on the stew pot of my thoughts, the Lord patiently whispered this mind-blowing truth:

Melody, when did you start believing that my grace is sufficient only for you?

Gulp* Touche, God. He doesn’t need my help in parenting his children. He sees all wrongdoing and His grace is still sufficient, absolutely regardless of the way I am treated. I forsake the gospel altogether when I allow my heart to be judgmental and belittling toward others. The moment I allow myself to believe that Jesus’ miraculous birth, and sinless life, and atoning death and resurrection are only for me, I depreciate the magnitude of Christ’s coming to earth. I can’t grip God’s undeserved grace in the white knuckles of selfishness and preach about the joy of God’s new mercies each day.

This Christmas I hope that the story of Christ’s birth reminds you of God’s remarkable grace for you, personally. And in turn, I hope this encourages you, like it has for me, to offer the same unconditional love to the people in your life. At the end of the day, we’re all undeserving of such a gift as this:

“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”