On Thanksgiving, my pastor, being the pastor he is, always brings up the joy of giving. I'm pretty sure one year he pulled up some scientific studies about awesome health benefits from giving - things you can measure by looking at a brain MRI (which somehow makes me giggle... probably the doctoral student in me) Anyway, this Thanksgiving he offered to fill in the role for spiritual guidance for a few people. My starving heart capered about in great joy as I very timidly asked if I could be one of those people. I hate asking for things... not because I think it will make me look weak... but because I usually don't think I deserve them. But I dove off the cliff for this one because I could seriously feel myself wasting away and intuition/the Holy Spirit were beckoning. For 3-4 years I've been battered about between license and legalism, and I knew I needed some roots... back into the life of God I used to flourish in.
I blubbered through the first call. It's been so long since I've had anyone spiritually available to minister to me... all I wanted to do was cry in relief. Thankfully I had a terrible cold, so I hoped my poor pastor attributed most of my sniveling to that effect. I tried to pile things into a plan so that I would stay on track. *Cue Mulan soundtrack... Let's get down to business! Luckily it's my pastor we're talking about. That's why I entrusted him with being the guide to plug me back into the life of God. He gave me the verse "Are you tired, worn out, burned out from religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. (I felt like shouting with joy after that one verse) and it continued... "I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace." So he left me to ask myself, "What would it look like to take a real rest?" and "What practices if any would help you enter into the unforced rhythms of grace?" with a side admonition of "It should be something that sounds sort of fun, if not outright fun!"
The next call he managed to convince me to read a fantasy book every day as sort of a spiritual discipline and left me to meditate on John 1:1-18. Here was my brainblurb. "Word is cerebral, but grace is spirit/soulish. And grace came first, but through the Word. So Word is grace and came first, and Jesus is grace and truth. We worship in spirit and truth. Grace may come through the spirit. Jesus had the Holy Spirit on him (later verses in John). Perhaps we best experience grace through the Holy Spirit? But what does it look like practically? We follow some general guidelines for being shalomy, and trust the Spirit will enter and fill in the rest of the space with spontaneous grace and fullness? What does grace mean again in the Greek? Isn't it related to thanksgiving and charis deo... something Ann Voskamp wrote about?
"Charis" from graciousness (as gratifying) of manner or act (esp the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection the life including gratitude) God's tender sense of our misery (and here I dissolved into tears again) displays itself in his efforts to lessen and entirely remove it - efforts that are hindered and defeated only by man's continued perverseness. Grace removes guilt. Mercy removes misery. It has various uses "that which bestows or occasions pleasure, delight, or causes favorable regard"
What I remember most about the life I lived before the Zoloft debacle, before feeling like I had to constantly perform to fit in, before I wondered if it was better to fast and be miserable but be doing the "right thing" or to not fast and be miserable out of guilt that I wasn't doing anything to be closer to God like everyone else... is that I was happy with myself and I caused a lot of happiness. I think that I was born full of grace. To put it more humbly, I'm pretty certain God dumped the gift of grace on me as an infant. Even my Korean name Eunjee has grace in it! I bestowed a lot of pleasure and delight as an baby without ever trying to. My mom always had women at the grocery store coming up to her and wanting to hold me. I posted a picture of little me on facebook on a whim for "TBT" or "throw back Thursday" and I was completely astounded that I got over 60 likes. I was less surprised when I realized its because everyone needs more grace... more delight and less misery.
Anyway, this long haul to say... grace is probably more than you think it is. There is a richness missing from the traditional churchy understanding of grace. I wish everyone could share in it's truth. God tenderly senses our misery... ironically often caused by trying to please him or getting caught up in the religion of trying to do right by him... and he wants to entirely remove it! It's personal. It's mindboggling. God cares! And God is active. And God is delightful.
Please believe it.
