It's by God's Grace

I was talking to my Grandma about something that happened on her job and I received a connection to something I’m learning about God. She drives a school bus for a public-school system, so most of her stories are very entertaining, but this one in particular made a lightbulb go off for me. She has an after-school activity she drives in the evenings Monday through Thursday that has about 14 kids on the route. Each year she starts out by driving the route and learns how to conveniently drop the kids off so that their walks aren’t as long from the designated bus stops. She does this because she cares about the safety of the students she transports. After about the second week she starts to asks the kids which corners and streets are best for them, then tailors her route to the convenience of the students so that they have shorter and safer walks home. She even drops some of them off right in front of their homes if she has to pass them to get to a stop on the regular or edited route. This year she ran into an issue to that caused an interruption to her normal activities. Two unruly, young men got on the bus and decided they would entertain themselves, and the other kids, by talking trash to and about my Grandma. Now while they’re laughing and cracking jokes, they haven’t realized that the person who is the butt of the jokes has been offended by the lewd insults being thrown at her. To fix them she passes by the stops on the altered route the students have become accustomed to and goes to the official stops designated by the county schoolboard. Of course, the students are shocked and dismayed by this abrupt change, but due to their compliance with the two hecklers that evening, they lost the courtesy My Grandma had extended to them up until that day. She then informs each student that for the remainder of the school year that she will be dropping them off at the official bus stop.

The connection here is how the enemy steals our peace, joy, happiness, and other gifts from God by distracting us, intimidating us, and tricking us into complying to his will. See those children did NOTHING to earn the grace my Grandma was extending to them. She did it because she saw they needed it and she was able to extend it to them. Up until that day she has saved them a few long walks in the rain, heat, dark and/or cold. The grace she gave them was not asked for nor was it bought for them, she gave it freely and asked for nothing in return. Just like those kids, we as God’s children are awarded an unmerited grace that covers and sustains us as we live day by day. God’s grace flows freely into us from His throne as Christ intercedes for us to The Father. But when we slip and fall into the traps the enemy sets up, we lose touch with the benefits of that grace. When we backslid, disobey God, run from God, and even get mad at God we lose out on His grace and all that it provides for us. Like those kids when the two bad kids got on and carried on, we have a propensity to comply with the enemy from time to time, even if it’s not direct participation our tolerance of some people around us can even block the flow of God’s grace to us. Satan knows how to trick us, he knows our weaknesses and just how to exploit them and we do fall for the foolery from time to time. When we choose to follow the enemy, because he can’t MAKE us do anything, we incur a punishment for our transgression. Now the difference in these situations is that Grandma isn’t reversing her punishment, but God will reverse His when we realign with His righteousness and there is where we find the concept of mercy. Now what messed it up for these kids is they tried to lie to get my Grandma in trouble. One student, who just so happened to be an innocent bystander who has to suffer with the bad told the truth and the school official told the children they messed themselves up because what their bus driver was doing for them was a favor she did not have to do. So, the mercy that might’ve been available to them was made unavailable because of their attempt to lie to get their grace back.

Grace and mercy are two interesting and very awesome concepts when it comes to God and how He interacts with us. Unfortunately, so many believers, especially the “religious” types miss out on the freedoms and comforts provided by God’s grace and mercy. When you focus on everything you cant do when trying to please God, it becomes too much and you either stop trying or get frustrated with God and then spend your life angry at God. However, when you change your perspective to focus on all you can do and all God gives, you find yourself in a constant state of gratefulness. Hopefully this little illustration helps you change your perspective if you are pursuing God and you may have been miseducated like I was. We no longer work for grace, and even if we tried to work for God’s grace, we’d never obtain it. In fact, due to the new covenant in the Bible, working for graces cancels out the flow of God’s grace. So enjoy what God gives freely and be graceful and merciful to others to increase the flow of grace and mercy to you.