by Roger Mock
“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace –
only that it meets us where we are
but does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott
While visiting family in the 1990s I happened to spot a bumper sticker on a parked car while walking down a New Jersey street. “Grace Happens”, it proclaimed in a child’s fanciful script. I got up close and found a Martha’s Vineyard address in small print, copying it down on a scrap of paper. I had to have one! In fact I ordered half a dozen so I could give them away when anyone asked me about it, which they occasionally did. A couple of times a conversation ensued: “What is grace, anyway?”
Think of the word “graceful”. Now think of a majestic white swan, sleekly gliding on a still pond toward the far shore, barely disturbing the surface of the water as it moves. We call that graceful, because it slips so elegantly and effortlessly through the water and with such poise and self-assurance. You could say it has perfect faith in the flow of grace. It is one with the flow of the water and movement of the breeze, measuring each movement accordingly.
The flow of Divine Grace is always available to us. It does not descend from heaven every couple of years on a whim to toss us a coin or two. It is the free gift of the Creator ready to lavish its gifts upon us, no strings attached. All that it requires is a little willingness on our part to trust in the flow and a little lessening of the willfulness that we too often engage in instead.
Perhaps we are wired for grace the way a house is wired for electricity. Imagine living in that house but not knowing what electricity was or how it worked. Maybe we just have to know how to plug into that current.
“The grace of God opens us to the swift,
glorious and empowering way of Truth.
It prepares us for a life that is altogether good.”
– The Daily Word