It's all about grace

Relationships are all about grace.

Remember the 3 types of relationships from last week? God, Self, and Others?

Grace definitely plays into all of our relationships. If we have received grace from God, then we should be more willing to give it to yourself and others. If you are like me, giving grace to yourself may be harder than giving it to others.

While on a Zoom networking meeting recently a woman shared that she had been confused by grace and the meaning of it as it ties to relationships. Her mother always talked about grace as in something you did, being lady-like is a good example of that.

Do you really understand what grace means? I became a Christian at 44 years of age. At that point, I didn’t have a concept of what grace was then. To me, it meant to not sweat the small stuff. I had no point of reference of how much grace I had been given and to be willing to freely give it as well.

Understanding grace was a big part of my spiritual journey.

Here is what you will find if you search for the definition of grace:

simple elegance or refinement of movement.

"she moved through the water with effortless grace"

courteous goodwill.

"at least he has the grace to admit his debt to her"

verb

do honor or credit to (someone or something) by one's presence.

"she bowed out from the sport she has graced for two decades"

I think this is why my friend that I mentioned above has had a hard time understanding the spiritual meaning of grace. The worldly definitions are  completely different from the Spiritual definition.

Common Christian teaching is that grace is unmerited mercy (favor) that God gave to humanity by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross, thus securing man's eternal salvation from sin. Within Christianity, there are differing concepts of how grace is attained. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_grace

Unmerited favor. Those two words describe it perfectly. It’s a beautiful gift. To give grace I believe you must have really received it first. It is true that you can not give what you don’t have.

Another way to expand on grace, is to compare it to mercy:

Mercy is not getting what we deserve.

Grace getting what we don't deserve.

Think about that. For mercy, think about the phrase “throwing ourselves on the mercy of the court” … meaning that we know that we deserve the punishment, but we’re asking “the powers” to not give us the punishment we deserve.

For grace, it’s actually more of something that we would LIKE to have, but don’t expect … and then we get it! Think about the Christmas present that blew you away as a kid, or the birth of one of your children or grandchildren, or whatever your equivalent was. 

My question for the week for you: what was one thing you got that you didn’t expect, that helped teach you what grace was? I’m specifically asking about grace from others, not grace from God or yourself. What did YOUR “unmerited favor” look like?

One of the important things to know about grace is that it is tied to forgiveness. I will share more about that in a future post, so stay tuned!

Here is a song for you to enjoy as you reflect on your understanding of grace. Let the words flow over you and connect to your heart in a new way. I love this song so much that it was on my annual playlist from 2011 through 2018.

Coach Dale

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Playlists — music can change your mood, enjoy some of the songs that encourage me.

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