I really don't (I think) like you...wanna go to lunch?

"Be Kind; Everyone You Meet is Fighting a Hard Battle."

(John Watson)*

We are all guilty of this flaw.  We all have at least one person in our life whom we'd like to see move to Yemen and we would never have to deal with or see again.  My guess you have more than one person.  I know I do.  "What's the flaw Beth?  We aren't all going to get along."  Well the flaw is this, we don't actually know the person.  We don't.  Oh we say we do, we think we do based on things they say or ways they behave, but we don't actually know them. 

Stick with me.  I've got an example from the past, mine specifically, that has come back around today as a result of a hard situation I had to witness.

The year was 2007.  (Ha, you totally thought it was going to be a really long time ago.)  I was prepping to head to Kenya.  I was dreading it but resolved to obedience.  (Wondering about all that?  Click here.)  What I didn't know was that my entire team was sort of dreading it as well...BECAUSE OF ME.  I don't remember speaking much at team meetings but apparently when I did it was all fear-filled and anxiety laden.  All they knew about me was what they heard me say and from the few things I said they all formed opinions about me and decided they "knew" me.  (Now you know where I'm headed with this lesson don't you?!)  Ever have that happen to you?  Now be honest, how many times a week, a month, do you do that to someone else?  Whose name immediately popped into your mind when you read my last sentence? We all have at least one person we have done this too. 

Before the trip I had a lunch meeting with a team member.  She's a strong personality and frankly scared me to death.  My plan was just to be as quiet as possible and just do whatever I could so we would get along.  (Don't even start with me, I'm sure that will be a blog in itself one day, sooner rather than later.)  I praise God for my friend's honesty.  She looked me straight in the eye and said, "Beth, I don't think we are going to get along.  I'm concerned that I'm going to run (bulldoze - ha!) right over you."  My jaw dropped.  She went on to explain why, telling me about the things I had said at team meetings causing her to half-dread taking this trip with me.  I was shocked.  I had no idea that my dread, etc was saturating every word that came out of my mouth and causing other team members to form an opinion about me and who I was. 

To my friend's credit she did two things that day that we all can and should learn from and put into practice immediately.  1)  She was honest with me about how she felt about me, the little she knew to that point.  2)  She asked me to share my story with her so she could gain better understanding. 

Fast-forward to present day. 

A few days ago I had someone, who has their own story, inappropriately discuss a person they didn't like with me.  (Btw, don't think I let the gossip just flow - I nipped it in the bud as quick as I possibly could.)  Now what's interesting about this person's vent to me was two things.  1)  Before they started venting they asked, in a roundabout way, if I liked the person.  I do.  I, in fact, love this person with philia love.  2)  After discovering that I do, indeed, like the person they still said horrible and mean things about the person to me!  Gutsy.  And awkward.  Suddenly I was placed in the position of having to defend my friend's character to this person who was bent on slandering it.  The fact of the matter is neither one of them like each other but one is incredibly vocal about their dislike while the other still treats this person with courtesy.  When I stated a truth about my friend the person venting corrected me based on their own perceptions and story that have nothing to do with the person they don't like and everything to do with themselves! 

Do you see what we DO? 

Because I've done it.  You have done it.  We have all done this.  Oh maybe we are better than going around and publicly slandering the person as the person in my story above has done but we've done it.  And in private or in public it is still wrong. 

WRONG. 

Wrong because we know what it is like to be vilified for perceptions about us that aren't true.  Wrong because if we say we are children of God then we are behaving poorly for royalty.  Wrong because we have conveniently forgotten that the very same grace that God has extended to us - oh so wretched that we each are - he also extends to the person we are slandering and he expects us to extend grace as well.  Wrong because we have dismissed the fact that the One who created us and calls us his also created that person and calls that person his. 

Every person has a story.  Sometimes we are able to conquer the story and create an ending for our benefit. Sometimes we don't know how to create a better ending so we are stuck.  Sometimes we have "writer's block" when it comes to our endings.  But we all have a story.  I like the fuller version of the quote of Watson's from the snippet I started this post with, "This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle; we are bound not to irritate him, nor press hardly upon him nor help his lower self."  (John Watson, 1903)  Our stories may surprise others as much as I think they sometimes surprise us!

So I have an idea.  What if we decided to have lunch with the person we think we don't like?  Can you imagine?  What if we even paid for the lunch or brought them lunch?  What if we asked them questions and tried to get to know them, and their story, to gain understanding of why they behave and/or speak the way they do?  What if?

The story we hear doesn't serve as a justification for bad behavior from that person but it might help us have a little more understanding with them, extend Grace so that God can have a way to work in their life, and give them a chance to be exposed to healthier choices for their emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.  
We don't have to be best friends with this person who rubs us the wrong way but God does ask us to extend courtesy and sometimes that's easier when we know a little of their story.

Who has come to the forefront of your mind?  Consider asking them to lunch!  Go ahead, take the chance and let God have his way.  

Oh, the friend who was afraid she would bulldoze me?  Yep.  This is her and I, besties.  

God used that lunch and our honesty with each other to knit our hearts together in a way that amazes us.  

It doesn't always happen this way but when it does it is oh so sweet. 

*Thought it was Plato who said it huh?  Click here for research on the author of this quote!

Blurry Grace

Lately I've been looking around, I've been listening, I've been observing.  And I'm confused.  I'm confused because I think Grace has been misappropriated, misunderstood, taken advantage of, used up.

Several years ago a friend and I would joke around about obtaining pre-meditated forgiveness for a sin we were considering committing.  We were joking but I think these days people actually do this and use Grace as their "get out of jail free" card.  I see a flippant attitude to the character God calls us too and when questioned the answer is usually in the form of, "Well that's why there is God's Grace."  Well no, not really. I mean, yes, there is Grace from God but no, that's not an excuse for intentional and consistent sin against God and his Word.  These days there is ultra-sensitivity to legalism so people have become reluctant to point out the abuses Grace is taking.  But it isn't legalism when it is simply God's word straight up.  What I may bring up as examples could sting a little.  But rest assured I had to go through the stinging before I put it out there for anyone else.  Are you willing to be stung so that Grace becomes a point of clarity in your life and not a blurred line?

Here are some questions about Grace that I've been thinking about.

• Can you take Grace too far?  How far is too far?
• Where do you draw the line between permissive lifestyle and Grace lifestyle?

Why is Grace important?  A couple of key reasons I think.

One, because God's Grace in our lives should lead us to desire holiness. It should prompt us to want to engage in the things of God and not the things of our flesh.  As an author I like to read and follow says, "The law exposes the ugliness of sin and drives you to Grace.  Grace exposes the beauty of God's law and moves you to obey." (Paul David Tripp)  Right on! God's law, a better interpretation of that word would actually be instructions, is beautiful and meant for our good, for our benefit, in all ways - physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  And when I recognize and accept the beauty of God's instructions I want to obey. It's not even that I feel forced to obey, I truly desire to.  Grace leads me to an exercise in holiness.

Secondly, Grace offers us a cushion.  A cushion on which to land when we fall down. And we all fall down. But Grace is not something to take advantage of.  It isn't our "get out of jail free" card. It isn't our license to sin because we know we can ask for forgiveness and will be granted it.   In his book, The Truth War, John MacArthur has this to say about the abuse of Grace in the Church today, "....they [believers] presumptuously regarded God's kindness to sinners as a license for immoral conduct....All their stress on freedom in Christ was actually a back-handed assault on God's grace.  'Grace' to them was nothing more than a phony justification for lust-driven behavior."  (The Truth War page 137.  Also check out: 2 Peter 2:19, Jude 1:4) Stings a little doesn't?  

But Beth, I don't engage in lust-driven behavior.  Okay, well while that is the focus of MacArthur's text let's talk about some other assaults on Grace.  Have you ever...

• Dropped the f-bomb as part of your normal speech?  (I get the times in anger but even then we do have the Spirit in us to help us exercise self-control even when we don't want to or feel like it.)
• Called in sick to work when you weren't sick?  (That's called lying.)
• Engaged in lustful behavior that edged right up to the line of going over?  (I thought I would throw lust back in seeing as how a lot of singles, and even marrieds, don't have a proper and right understanding of lust.)
• Justified your actions regarding: stealing, lying, gossiping, etc.

There's more where that list came from.  All of those things, and more, lead us to a lifestyle opposite of Grace.  If Grace leads us to holiness then when we engage in word and deed opposite of holiness we are abusing God's gift of Grace in our lives.

Where we abuse Grace in one area we will begin to in others. That's when the gift of Grace becomes a blurred line in our lives and no longer a point of clarity.  That's when we begin to treat it as a "get out of jail free" card and not a place to reside in so we can exercise holiness. It's where we begin to shrug off holiness and call it "legalism" so we can justify our unholy behaviors and words. 

Back to my questions that I've been thinking about.  In light of what we've just discussed here's where I land:

• Can you take Grace too far?  How far is too far?                                                                         Yes, I believe you can take Grace so far that it is no longer Grace, it's just a word that is used to provide a cover for what you are really doing.  You can take it so far that it becomes your justification not your sanctification.  How far is too far?  When you shrug it off so that the behaviors and words your engage in fit more comfortably than the holiness Grace compels us too.  
• Where do you draw the line between permissive lifestyle and a Grace lifestyle?                              This particular question came from a conversation I had with a barista in a coffee shop a couple of years ago.  (No seriously, this post has been sitting in my queue for two years waiting on me to wrap it up!  But I digress.)  He and I were chatting while he got my delicious coffee.  I love this particular coffee shop in town, the people who own it are a large family that are all beautiful and love Jesus but, yes I said but, the more I spoke with them - the parents, the various kids - the more I saw a permissive lifestyle lived couched in "Well that's why there is God's Grace" accompanied by a shoulder shrug.  Huh.  I'm not judging, I'm observing.  And because I really like this family I started thinking about where is the line?  And do you love Jesus "for real" when you don't let Grace sanctify your life?  (Remember, Grace should lead us to a lifestyle of holiness.)  The line, in my opinion, is drawn when God's instructions are pushed aside for the freedom to engage in our flesh.                       

I know.  It sounds radical.  It sounds "legalistic".  It sounds so counter-cultural.  I suppose you could look at it that way, except for the legalistic label.  It is not legalistic when it is God's word straight up.  We like to label things that we don't like or that rub us the wrong way as legalistic, get over it.  Allow God's word to pierce you, get settled in to the idea that God's word is not called a two-edged sword for no reason.  It is meant to divide us from our flesh and show us how to live in God's ways.  That's going to pierce.  Is this idea of Grace not being a "get out of jail free" card counter-cultural and radical?  You bet.  Especially in this day where affluence and comfort is the affliction of the Church and living Godly lifestyles.  We want our cake (Grace) and to be able to gorge on it with no consequences (permissive lifestyles).  That idea, my friends, is counter-cultural to God's instructions.  

Are you living in blurry grace?  Have you been using Grace as a justification and denying its real mission of sanctification?  The thing that I didn't really touch on in this post about Grace is also the way in which it leads us to interact with others.  A Grace lifestyle doesn't put us in a place of judgement toward others and their behaviors.  Grace lets us know we need only to be concerned with ourselves and trust God is working out Grace in the lives of those we interact with, just as we are hopeful they are trusting God to do the same with us.  Certainly we are called to hold each other to higher standards and we can do that without passing judgement.  Really we can!  So perhaps together we can begin to swing back toward God's instructions (whether we "like" them or not) and begin showing others what the clarity of Grace brings.