grace: a moral scandal

Graces forgives the unforgivable, loves the unlovable, and touches the untouchable. It's a moral scandal.

~Seth Barnes (founder of AIM)

How many of us get distracted or confused about what love is based on what we see in the world around us? The world tells us that love is conditional; commit and pursue what makes you happy and brings reward.

It teaches that love is disposable. What's the reasonable response when someone lets you down? Doesn't hold up to their end of the deal? Causes you hurt instead of bringing you joy? The world says: walk away. That's fair, after all, isn't it? Justice is when we get what we deserve. Someone hurts or disappoints you, they don't deserve your time or energy, do they? And love someone who has nothing to offer you, who can't pull their weight? Well, that's plain ridiculous...right?

The world teaches us that all of our relationships and interactions with one another are based on expectation.

Juxtaposed next to the ideas depicted in the media, Jesus's description of what it means to love is radically different. Love, in the biblical sense, Agape, is unconditional. It is NOT about responding to or matching what someone brings to the table... it is not based on expectation. What any of us brings into any relationship can change, and we are all bound to hurt or disappoint others at certain times in our lives. We are far from perfect, after all. But love is grace. If justice is when someone gets what they deserve (and mercy is when they don't get what they deserve), then grace is when someone gets what they do not deserve.

Christ calls us to support and love the the sick, poor, and needy - people who cannot give us anything in return. He urges us to reach out to the users and abusers. Moreover, Christ calls us to love the unlovely, those who hurt us, OUR ENEMIES, without condition. This IS the love God shows us. Yet, how many of us live in states of ungrace? Maybe we give money, or spend time serving the less privileged, but how many of us have walked away from people who have let us down? How many of us have failed to show grace, not to our enemies necessarily, but to those who have disappointed us? I know I am guilty of this.

And it has been weighing on me since coming across the blog by Seth Barnes that had the quotation at the top of this post. I had posted it on my Facebook page the other day and a friend responded with this comment: " think about it, our ungrace is not tattooed on our foreheads, but on our hearts. God is the only one who can see the true intentions of our heart. He chooses to overlook our ungraces, because of his grace." How wild and humbling is that? If God chooses to overlook our ungraces, because of His grace, surely we can do our best to make the same choice. And so I'm doing a careful inventory of my heart this week, weighing my own instances of "ungrace." I said at the start of this blog that I wanted my life to be a legacy of love. I'd like to add to that, I would like it to also be marked by grace. Proverbs 3:27 says, "Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act." Although we might not always feel like it, we all have the power to choose grace, and not ungrace, as our default response towards others.

What love looks like...

If you remember, I began this blog by asking what does LOVE look like today - do we still see examples of selflessness and acts of genuine love, where the well-being of others is put completely ahead of our own? Well, I came across a blog entry by Aaron Brunner (he's been in Haiti with AIM since just after the earthquake) that is a testimony to this kind of love...

This past week Aaron visited an orphanage completely destroyed (the Fleury Foundation Orphanage). Before the earthquake it ran a medical clinic, bakery, housing for 50+ kids, a church, and a school - they lost everything. During his visit to the site, he came across a crushed building that used to house the kids but now all that remained were a hat and dress draped over the rubble. When asked why those were there, he was told the following:

The day the earthquake hit, the children were out in front of the building sitting down or playing around. One of the house mothers was on the 2nd floor with two of the children as the building came crashing down. She jumped to protect them, hovering over them, agonizing in pain as the walls crumpled on top of her. The children crawled out of the rubble barely scraped while the mother laid there, body beaten and weakened by the blow. She knew that the children had made it safely out as she took her final breaths beneath the rocks. She laid her life down for these sweet sweet babies. This hat and dress were hers. They are a reminder to them of her sacrifice. The way she gave her life as Jesus did, so that others might live.

This story is a true testimony of love. Although I am just reading about it second hand, I am blown away and moved by it... I want to say thanks again to all those who have donated towards my trip so far. I am so grateful you have allowed your hearts to be moved for these people and have generously supported me.

And, a special thanks tonight Teresa & Jessica W, your donations just came through today and have helped put me past 25%.

What does love look like?

I have a confession to make. I have LOVE on the brain.

And not your bells and whistles lowercase 'l' love. I'm talking about LOVE, with a capital 'L'. Of the Agape variety - the selfless kind, passionately committed to the well-being of others as described in Corinthians: "patient, kind, doesn't envy or boast, isn't proud or rude or self-seeking, isn't easily angered, keeps no record of wrong...doesn't delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. Always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres". The kind that never fails.

And I've been asking myself, what does that look like today? Does that kind of love exist in the world today?

When I think about my life and what kind of a legacy I want to leave behind... for me, as a Christian, it boils down to Ephesians 5:2 "live a life of love".

If nothing else, I want to be remembered as someone who loved. In the biblical sense. In the selfless sense. Because, at the end of the day, I believe that while we have each been created with a divine appointment, we all share a common purpose - to love.

I came across a quotation by St. Augustine that attempts to answer the question What does love look like? His response: "It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like."

My prayer today, tonight, and tomorrow? That my life will be a testimony to that image of love.