Grace

I witnessed a random act of kindness the other day. It happened in a simple context. I had produced 3 small packets of sweets for 3 of my grandchildren, carefully selecting 3 different colours to present. To avoid potential conflict so I thought. But silly Papa that I am I hadn’t thought that one of the colours might be a favourite of more than  one of the children. The child who had first choice selected strawberry, the second child lemon  - leaving raspberry for the third in line. But quelle surprise… the third one wanted, rather demanded,  the strawberry sweets as it was their “very favourite flavour in the whole world.” What to do? My decades of mediation skills failed me in that moment. Just at the exact second that I feared the impending release of a squeal of gargantuan proportions – the first child handed over her pack with the accompanying observation that “You can have them as I like the Raspberry ones too”. Dilemma avoided,  life moved on while I sat back and marvelled at that act of unsolicited generosity. Selflessness in action in the simple everyday affairs of life. It was a simple act of kindness, or as the writers of the bible would call it, an act of Grace.
One Christian writer, Philip Yancey, refers to our default characteristic as one of “ungrace”, a state of mind which is the polar opposite of the type of grace and generosity that should animate people of faith everywhere.  He claims that ungrace does its work quietly and lethally, rather like poisonous gas. So is we are all infected, what is the solution? For Yancey  we need to have grace healed eyes so we can see the good in people despite their exteriors.
For me this needs to start with ourselves. So many people have grown up in communities, including churches where they have been told they have failed, that they are not good enough, that they stand under judgement and even that that they are unworthy of God’s love. Such Ungrace. We need to learn to love ourselves and realise that there is a God who pursues us relentlessly so he can capture us with his grace and fill us with his unconditional love. That is the lavishness of divine grace, God meets us where we are and as we are. This is not some type of cheap grace - as Jesus died so we can experience it.
Just visualise how politics and society could be revolutionised if we viewed the world through grace healed eyes. Just imagine what an outbreak of Grace could do to this fallen world. Change can, indeed should begin with me and you. So, today, why not challenge yourself to see someone you have issues with through grace healed eyes.  To imagine their potential rather than their present condition? It can be a life changing experience.