Grace in the Wildflowers
Stepping Out of Entitlement and Into Thankfulness
Innovative writer and pastor Eugene Peterson once said, “[m]y job is not to solve people’s problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.” God’s grace has always been present. All throughout the Bible, beginning in the Old Testament, God gave grace to humanity after it failed Him on many different occasions.
Have you ever found yourself as the perpetrator of a crime against your friend? You fret and worry that he will not associate himself with you any longer, but instead, he gracefully forgives you and extends his hand to you. As a Christian, I want to echo Peterson’s objective- “to help [people] see the grace operating in their lives.”
Grace is a concept that goes “against the grain.” It hits peoples’ hearts differently than any other idea. Simone Weil explains why the idea of grace has such a specific effect on people in her book Gravity and Grace: “All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it.” If grace is so blatantly obvious against the backdrop of hate and unforgiveness, why does it, as Peterson says, have to be pointed out in our lives?
I think this can be explained by the fact that we take things for granted. I have often heard that my generation thinks it is “entitled,” and I agree with that idea, to an extent. My generation — the one of the early 2000s — has not grown up in the hardest of circumstances in comparison to earlier ones. We did not grow up in the midst of something like World War II, so many of us were able to assume a somewhat easy lifestyle compared to those before us. But I also believe that, in general, the human race often overlooks the simple things in life — such as the beauty and faithfulness of God that can be seen in a morning sunrise.
Why do we often feel entitled? According to the Oxford Languages dictionary, “entitlement” means “the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.” This belief that we are “deserving of privileges” comes from our sense of regularity. We get used to our regular schedules, with the regular people we encounter at the regular places we visit.
Almost every time someone I know goes on a mission trip to another country, he says the trip was life-changing. Why was his mission trip so powerful? Because he started his journey on a new schedule, and he encountered new people and new places. He saw the circumstances that other people lived in and their attitudes toward grace whenever it was showed to them. He was able to perceive the differences in his way of living and the ways of those around him. And he was able to see the grace that he had been given throughout his entire life.
What happens when we start recognizing grace and being thankful for it? We realize that most of our everyday problems are trivial and that we have already been given so much that we don’t deserve. We realize that we are blessed to even wake up in the morning, and we find joy in the ordinary.
In his book What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Philip Yancey tells of the scene at a conference of “experts from around the world” in Britain. The experts were discussing what sets Christianity apart from other religions, and writer C.S. Lewis said the answer was simple — grace. Yancey goes on to comment on Jesus’ dealings with grace: “He [Jesus] described a world suffused with God’s grace: where the sun shines on people good and bad; where birds gather seeds gratis, neither plowing nor harvesting to earn them; where untended wildflowers burst into bloom on the rocky hillsides. Like a visitor from a foreign country who notices what the natives overlook, Jesus saw grace everywhere.” I think that in our daily lives, we can become more aware of the grace given to us by God and others — just as Jesus was sensitive to the grace in the wildflowers.
We can be grateful that although we do not deserve it, grace is still given to us freely. St. Paul explains this in Ephesians 2:8–9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” I think this is one of the most important things to remember about grace — we can not earn it. Sometimes I feel unworthy of God’s love and forgiveness, but I have to remember that it is God’s gift to me. I can choose to accept it or refuse it, but it will never be something I have to earn. I hope that, somehow, my life would help others see the grace of God in the wildflowers.
