an unknown grace

Working with adolescent females, our particular brand of secular therapy is designed to teach the girls to step aside from misleading emotions and make a wise decision based on the wider range of possibilities. Drug abusers and self-harmers can be black and white thinkers to a fault. Every lapse in circumstance or judgment is seen as the final straw, as if to prompt them, "Well, if that's the case, I may as well return to rock bottom!" Clearly, not every letdown is nearly so dire. We prepare them to acknowledge the unseen grey so that they can avert those temptations on "the outs."

Which is comical, because I myself am a notoriously black and white thinker. For me, a leap of faith can only be described as a jubilant success or a miserable failure. An element of doubt in my relationships can lead to a resignation of absolute rejection. If I cannot complete an assignment as given, I may as well never try. I have a difficult time accepting praise for doing what is right; my reward in full is that I've managed to avoid what is wrong.

Obviously, this mentality comes into conflict with grace. When I was taking graduate classes, I mismanaged my time on a term paper and didn't finish. A week later, my professor e-mailed me, wondering if I had anything that he could record for a grade. I admitted that since I knew it was late, I didn't bother asking if I could submit it. He asked if it was done; I said, "It can be in an hour."

I received a B for my A work, but it never occurred to me to ask for grace. I had a theological epiphany through this experience -- rather, an experience that matched my previously stated theology.

If we're to be honest, we all hunger for grace like a dog longs for table scraps. We know that we want it, but we don't know quite how to ask, and what exactly to expect. Our contemporary value of tolerance is linked to this desire. By accepting one another's behaviors, we allow for a hallway pass without the honest confrontation before the truly Just: "Lord, I screwed up, and I can't do this on my own."

I melt at the opportunity for this kind of grace. Nothing endears me more than the man who admittedly comes to the end of himself. Of the hundreds of sermons I have given, there is none better than the one that explores the excruciating love we encounter in that place.

My friend Michael and I were talking about the way God apprehends mankind, and I realized that I often get it backwards. Yes, we have the parable where the son comes to awareness of his sin and runs back to the Father for mercy. But we also have Christ meeting Paul on the road to Damascus. We find him calling Zaccheus out of the tree and inviting himself over for dinner. These stories of grace have little to do with man's humility. They didn't ask to be his; he wanted them to be.

I struggle to comprehend yet another characteristic of my God. It is one thing for Him to accept the beggar, he that asks and receives. But that God would offer grace that hasn't been proposed, just because He wants to? This is still a wonder; maybe it always will be.

It must be a remaining snippet of pride that only understands grace as a reaction to a cry for mercy. I realize that being an instrument of reconciliation will require a heart that doesn't need to be stoked to offer grace. I must love man in such a way that I want them for salvation as much as they crave it themselves. Anything less is a "grace" dependent on a law, an expectation from the heart of Jonah.