"Your grace overwhelms my brokenness"

Grace is a word that keeps coming back to me. It is coming up in conversations and in the message at church. But grace is a funny thing and a funny word. It can't be defined simply and in a single word.  This single word can pack such a punch. It is thrown around in songs and we simply skim over it thinking that we really know what it means.  So take a minute.....slow down.....

My dad always told me that grace stood for God's Riches At Christ Expense, an acronym of sorts.    Even that definition is hard to understand. But I am coming to understand it more. 

Grace, to me, is making mistakes, big or small and after running so far away from Christ and the heavenly father is standing there with his arms open waiting for us to come back. 

Grace is the fact that we are not perfect.  The only perfect being died on a cross so that we could broken and of this world and still receive Christ forgiveness and grace. 

But this is by far my favorite definition of grace, by Fredrick Beuchner:

“After centuries of handling and mishandling most religious words have become so shopworn nobody’s much interested any more. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some bloom left. 

Grace is something you can never get, but only be given. There is no way to earn it or bring it about anymore then that you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth. 

A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving someone is grace. 

The grace of god means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid, I’m with you. Nothing can ever separate us. Its for you I created the universe. I love you. 

There is only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. 

Maybe being able to reach out and take it as a gift too.”

- Frederick Buechner 

“Wishful Thinking”

As stated in the last few lines.....it is up to us to accept that Grace that Christ offers us. There are no strings attached to Christ's grace. It is swallowing our pride and our mentality that we can control our own lives and that we are in the drivers seat.  

Be blessed in all you do. 

Seek God's grace. 

Reach out and take Christ's grace.