It is fairly easy to bestow grace on those who love me in return. It's more challenging when my offers go unreceived and when I am repayed with further offense. More than once I have found myself wanting to give up, save my energies for another who is more pleasant and who just might recognize my sacrifice.
But then I watch someone else push through the difficulties and continue to extend this grace, and I am encouraged to push on and continue to do what I know Jesus does for me over and over and over again. After all, how many times has He shown me grace only to have me reject or refuse or not even recognize it? Those are the times I need His grace the most, and so I continue to extend it even when it's hard, because that's when that person needs it the most.
Grace sounds like a gentle, flowing, beautiful creature who forgives readily and loves easily. When looking at the big picture, that's how she might appear. But when grace becomes personal, she looks less graceful. Up close, grace becomes sacrifice, death to self, risk, being inconvenienced, getting hurt. Sometimes it's easier to turn my back and wait for the opportunity to pass. But when I do that, haven't I just deprived the recipient of her opportunity to experience the very grace of Jesus? To Jesus, giving His grace was sometimes thankless, unpopular, painful, bloody...and His ultimate gift of grace resulted in death. It is this very grace that welcomes me into His arms and allows me to spend all of eternity with Him. When I extend this grace to others, I should not expect it to be easy or pretty all of the time. But because it is a tiny reflection of His greater grace poured out, it is what I will commit to persevering in, with hope and faith that each small step of grace will guide another soul directly to Him.
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