In Ghana at the final debrief for my team Kindred Bow, I said to our coaches, “my next team doesn’t have to earn grace from me and I want to go into this living that out.”
In Cambodia my good friend said “Emma, I think you give mercy but you lack grace”. Those were good words to give but also hard to hear. She was right and it was something I knew the Lord had been calling me higher in for months, so later that day I shared again at the final debrief for my team Awaken. I shared that the Lord was calling me to give more grace. So my squad mentor, Stacy shared with me an active exercise to represent giving grace to people. You write down the “offense” as you have felt it/seen it and then you take a piece of tape, tape over that offense, and physically write the word grace over it.
I started to do the exercise, I started to “physically” give grace in this way to my teammates, friends, and family and it was cool to see situations rise up where my mind mentally did that exercise without needing to physically do it. I started giving it over to the Lord and talking situations out with Him. My heart started to change from criticism and frustration, to more grace and more love. Don’t get me wrong, the feelings still arose and my first thought wasn’t always grace, but if my first feeling was frustration or annoyance, my second feeling was “this is an opportunity where I can choose to give grace and turn to the Lord first.” I was seeing the Lord work in me and I though cool, I’m understanding and living out this grace thing. I’ve got this. Ha ha.
I’m not sure why, but I thought that this new to me experience of giving God-like grace was just needed for the people I was with, the community I was surrounded by, but I was wrong. I should have remembered that when the Lord calls you into something, there is a reason and the opportunities to live it out in not typical circumstances will present themselves. That doesn’t just mean in my personal, every day community. It’s easy to want to give more grace to your people, the ones you do life with, the ones you love. What isn’t as easy is to give grace to a person you don’t even know, whose face you’ve probably never seen and may not ever see.
A few days ago I was in the teacher’s room at school when my teammate walked in. She said, “Hey, um we all need to leave like right now because the girls think someone has broken into our house, but they aren’t sure.” We all quickly gathered our belongings and loaded up in the van, everyone was pretty silent. I’m not sure what was going through their heads but I was mentally calculating what could have been stolen from me the entire ride home.
When we got to the house, the local girls we lived with were sitting downstairs looking grave. I set my bag down, climbed the stairs, flipped on the light, held my breath and opened the door to our room. If you didn’t know any differently, you probably wouldn’t have guessed that someone had been in there. Subtle differences told me someone had been there rummaging. Drawers were slightly cracked open, my sleeping mat was askew, a few things were out of place, and I knew someone had definitely been there. The girls had been wrong before, but not this time.
I immediately began to assess my belongings. I’m not going to go into a list of what they stole from me (if you’d like to know, feel free to ask me), but it was pretty significant to me and to my teammate Katy and one of the local girls. I was shocked, irritated, sad, and angry that someone felt the right to take things that didn’t belong to them. I seriously went through the 5 stages of grief before the night was even over. People kept asking me how I was doing and my answer was “well, there isn’t anything I can do about it, so why dwell on it.” But silently I dwelled on it and felt pretty sorry for myself. Then I realized I had a decision to make about how I would see the situation. I could choose those feelings or I could choose to give grace and find joy.
As you read, I had been learning about giving grace and finding joy and here was an pretty big opportunity to live it out. So I asked the Lord, where is the joy here and how do I give grace here? He reminded me of a few things pertaining to grace. He reminded me of the story of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a thief, like a chief of thieves. He was a rich tax collecter because when he collected taxes, he collected much more than people owed and kept it for himself. People hated him, but Jesus just saw Zacchaeus and he went and spent his time with him. And because Zacchaeus came to know Jesus, Zachhaeus changed and Zacchaeus restored what he had stolen from people. Not only did he give back people’s money but he gave it back four-fold. Then God reminded me that even on the cross as he was dying, Jesus gave grace to a thief who hung beside him dying. Now God didn’t tell me that I would get my stuff back four-fold or even get it back at all, but He reminded me that He has given grace to thieves and so should I. So next I asked how do I give it? They weren’t around for me to tell them I give it to them, to show them I give it to them. So I started to pray for them and I still do and I will when I start to think about what they stole. I’ll keep praying that they meet Jesus.
Then I asked Him where was joy in this situation? I asked Him that quite a few times because I really didn’t know where it was. I heard Him ask me, did they steal everything you have? Name the things they didn’t steal, be grateful for those things. What were they incapable of stealing? Name those things, be grateful for those things. As I answered these questions, I started to see the joy. The joy of what I still have, the joy of what they couldn’t steal.I don’t necessarily look back on the situation and smile at what happened, but I smile at God’s presence in it all.
I asked Him for the ability to give more grace, I started seeking His joy in everything and I was given a situation to live it out. I shouldn’t be surprised when I am able to put what I have learned into action. That’s how things move from head knowledge into heart knowledge, through the action of living out what I have learned. I should be and am learning to be grateful for any opportunity to look more like Jesus. Somewhere out there, someone has my things but I want them to have the things that they couldn’t take from me. I want them to have joy. I want them to have salvation. I want them to have Jesus. They couldn’t steal my joy, my salvation, my love, my relationship with Jesus. If they come back with my things, awesome. I’m praying for that. Not so I can have my things back. So I can tell them they can keep the stuff and then so I can show them what they couldn’t steal.
What are some areas in your life where you can give more grace? How can you radically love someone by showing them the grace that has been given to you? Are you seeking joy even in hard situations? It might not look like what you think it will look like, but it will change your perspective. Hint: an attitude of gratitude will show you how to be more joyful. I’m going to include a link to an article about choosing joy below and I promise it’s worth the read.
https://www.jashow.org/articles/guests-and-authors/dr-steven-c-riser/joy-is-a-decision/
Thanks for reading. Love God, love others. Seek joy, give grace.
Love you ppl. <3
