So. . . Grace. . . yeah. . .
Near the beginning of this year I made God an interesting proposal. I struggled (and in some cases, still do) with many doubts concerning the core tenets of my faith. One of these areas was God's grace and what it meant for myself, personally, as well as the world as a whole. So I asked God to grow me in that area toward maturity. Boy, what a thing to proposition God about. . .
I lack the clarity to go into much detail at present, but I wanted to record some of the highlights for further exposition after much meditation.
Firstly, I did not realize how performance-driven I was in my relationship with God. I was, in essence, endeavoring to earn God's love and acceptance by doing acts of service; by setting unreachable expectations for myself and then beating myself up for not reaching them. "I can do better." "I'm better than this." "Give me another chance to prove it to You."
The argument looks something like this: If I can win God's favor, then He will love me. To do this, I must endeavor to become like the thing I desire. The thing I desire is infinite by nature. I, however, am finite by nature. Therefore, I must somehow move beyond my own finite-ness in order to achieve my objective. So then, if I can set, pursue and achieve the impossible, then I will be reconciled to God and will have earned His favor.
Rationally, one must presume that I suffer from an obsessive compulsive disorder manifesting itself in perfectionism wherein my entire sense of self-value and validation arise from what I can do for God, as if He was terribly wrought with some previously unknown shortcoming. A logical fallacy, to be sure, but what a terribly self-defeating thing for the patient (myself)! It would be bad enough if this were in response to another individual's continued (albeit co-dependent) involvement in my life; but within the context of an infinite super-being? How would one ever cope with the continued failure to measure up to that impossible standard?. . .surprisingly well; but it's the result of grace and not my works that I live to ponder these matters.
Grace seems to be less concerned with performativity and more concerned with relationship. It's easy to imagine a God who is so transcendent that He demands our capitulation in whatever He wills. It's exceedingly difficult for me to imagine a God who is so transcendent (beyond my limited grasp) that He will never stop loving me, no matter what I do. This seems so wrong. What kind of infinite being could love someone, even if they turn their back on Him?
I've heard the sermons on the prodigal son more times than I can remember. I've even preached it myself. But it was never so real to me until recently, as God opened my mind to accept the notion of what grace truly affords us. To have a God love us jealously; to have Him never stop pursuing us with His love and grace; how can I have missed it for so long?
Here's the problem inherent in the argument, and it's not in the unreasonable expectations nor the misunderstanding of validation and acceptance:
I want control.
That's it. Control says that I can make myself look like God. Truth says that there's nothing I can ever do to look like God. Grace says that God loves me so much that He's committed to transforming me so that I can then begin to look like Him. Grace says that God looks down upon my pitiable state with a kindness and compassion that I certainly do not deserve, all the while working through my many failures to draw me closer to Him. And as if that weren't enough, there are innumerable bi-products of this undeserved proximity including peace, holistic wellness, freedom from former "atonement" methods, and the indwelling Spirit of God who never stops breathing His life into me, the effects of which I cannot fully form into a coherent articulation. God's love just is. I don't deserve it; but He gives it to me anyway. All I have to do is take it, trusting that when I fail (and I will fail) His love won't stop beckoning me back to Him.
In the next post, I will go into further detail about what life is like without God's presence. But the gist is simply this: It sucks. Don't recommend it. Stay tuned.
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