A Powerful Word

I swing the word grace high and wide too often missing my mark. I know what grace is.  I want grace.  I know grace is good. I count on grace.  Why then is grace too often said but not practiced? 

James stuck a little fragment smack dab in the middle of conflict verses in chapter 4.  But he gives more grace. 

You mean in the middle of my conflicts God gives more grace?  You mean in the middle of my conflict I need to give more grace?  Ugh. 

Grace means that I have to set aside what I want at that time for the undeserved benefit of the one with who I am in conflict.  Grace means that I am willing to help even when it is hard or inconvenient. Grace means that I give more and want less.

My words are not naturally grace-filled.  When I am stifling the Spirit, when I am doing life in my own strength, when I forget that God lives in me, my words get me in trouble.  Grace does not define me.  Yet, it should. 

I am saved by grace.

I am to act in grace.

By the grace of God I live and breathe.

All of this sounds good, but when I have spent the last hour listening to a toddler scream, when a four year old refuses to stay in bed, when a nine year old whines and cries over most anything, when I feel like my words mean nothing, when the laundry pile never lessens, when the time between going to bed and getting up for the day seem as nothing, grace does not flow freely.

But he gives more grace. 

Every second.  Every hour.  Every day.  Every week.  Every month.  Every year.  Forever.