The Thing Beneath the ThingEsimerkki

Let Grace Find You

Years ago, I sat at a conference table with my coworkers in a business meeting that had turned into a sort of intervention. I’ll never forget having to look into the face of a friend and say, “You are someone I deeply love and respect, but there seems to be a pattern of you sharing the same issues over and over. It feels reminiscent of someone I knew who, for instance, was able to admit they had a substance addiction yet didn’t want to do anything about it. I’m worried about you, and I wonder if you notice the patterns I’m seeing. Can you help me understand why this is happening?”

I recall how my friend’s eyes welled up as he answered. “I just don’t know how to get from here to there. I’m overwhelmed, and I feel paralyzed, and I’m really struggling.”

I leaned across the table to meet my friend in his key moment of vulnerability. But just then, another coworker jumped in to offer the standard Christian response. He said, “Remember the grace you’ve received! It’s washed you clean. You’re a good man. Don’t get lost in works. Just grab hold of what God gave you through Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.”

The energy and passion of the coworker and the utterance of the word “resurrection” moved the room. Clapping started. “That’s right!” someone said. “Amen!”

Just like that, the chance at authentic connection disappeared. My friend had opened up about a messy personal struggle, and instead of making room for it, someone essentially told him to clean it up and be thankful for God’s grace. 

There was a profound disconnect between the grace being proclaimed and the true essence of sanctifying grace—that is, the grace God does in us. My coworker had implied that grace is perfected in us already, and any struggle my friend was sharing had already been fixed by grace. The implication was that my friend did not need to work on healing his wounds but to simply believe that God already had. With a view like that, we miss out on getting to partner with God in our own spiritual growth.

Dallas Willard once said, “Grace is not opposed to effort; it’s opposed to earning.” In ten words, Willard encapsulated everything I wish I’d said in response to my friend’s vulnerable confession. How perfectly simple and yet how true. I can never earn my standing or place with Christ, but every day is a choice to practice living in this new reality.

In Acts 9, Saul found himself on a 150-mile trek to Damascus, having heard stories of people boldly living out the teachings of Jesus. As Saul was on his way, grace found him. Saul encountered Jesus, who said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Grace will find you, and grace will find you out.

On the third day of his stay, there was a knock at the door. A disciple named Ananias had come to see Saul. Ananias walked up to the man responsible for the maiming and murdering of his friends. “Brother Saul,” he simply said to Christianity’s newest convert.

Brother. Can you imagine what that word must have meant to Saul, given the depths of shame he was in? That was the day Saul said yes to grace.

Over the next three years, Paul leaned hard into the work and allowed God to remake his heart, develop his gifts, and prepare him for all that was to come.

Grace has a deep desire to make you whole, holy, healed, and spiritually healthy and wants to partner with you in renewing all things pertaining to your heart, soul, and mind.

Whenever you exercise enough courageous curiosity to lean into your greatest sorrows and struggles, you open yourself up to experience the freedom and breakthrough God desires for you.

Respond

Describe a time when grace found you.

Who in your life needs to experience God’s grace right now? 

Prayer 

Father, I am so grateful for the grace you offer to each and every one of us.