We're reading a book in one of our classes called "Transforming Grace - Living Confidently in God's Unfailing Love." In one of the chapters he highlights a ‘token economy’ metaphor to underscore our limited view of God’s grace: what I do becomes what I earn. Or in our relationship with our Father: what God gives is in response to what I’ve done. He says that when we mix God’s generosity with our efforts, not only do we become frustrated with our own performance, but we also become hesitant to ask God to intervene and help us when we actually need him.
I went into this section of the book hoping to find some practical answers to how to experience God’s grace. I most certainly found practical but not comfortable. I don’t want to live, as the book puts it “by a heavenly welfare system.” I fight it. It’s humiliating. It’s desperate. It’s dependent. I want to have my spiritual savings account in which I can deposit spiritual acts of kindness, service, worship and, when things get tough, can draw upon it when I really, truly need it. But grace reminds us that we have nothing good to deposit and only Christ from Whom to withdraw.
Even in writing this, I feel myself fighting this notion. It reminds me of one of the practical struggles of being in seminary. My family is now on Medicaid and I don’t like it. I don’t want to receive a ‘hand-out.’ I don’t want to burden an already-broken, in-the-reddest-of-reds government system. But we need it. Without it, we would incur so much debt through a c-section than I could probably ever pay for in ministry. I do the same in my prayer life. I fight asking God for help and unfortunately make Him into an over-burdened entity. But He loves to give good gifts to His children. This experience of grace, daily grace, something God loves to pour out through Christ, is so hard to understand but so freeing to live within. I want to stop fighting it. He sees my debt, daily, and declares it paid in full through Christ. So I can approach Him with confidence and humility saying:
Father,
I need you AGAIN. Send grace.
Your ever-dependent and grateful son,
Chad
