Introspection: Amazingly Painful Grace

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Amazing(ly) (Painful) Grace

If you judge other people, then you will find that you, too, are being judged.  Indeed, you will be judged by the very standards to which you hold other people.

Matthew 7:1-2 (The Voice)

I've woken now to find myself

In the shadows of all I have created

I'm longing to be lost in You
(Away from this place I have made)

Won't You take me away from me?

Lost in a dying world, I reach for something more
I have grown so weary of this lie I live

From "Away from Me" by Evanescence

We are all on a journey. This journey takes us all in different directions, over hills, through valleys, through forests and deserts, on rocky trails and winding roads.

And at some point on this journey we'll find ourselves face-down on the side of the road with the taste of blood and dust in our mouths, wondering if we'll ever get back on our feet again.

As you can probably infer from my most recent introspections, the past few months haven't exactly been easy for me.  I have been deeply disappointed by people I once admired, and I have been forced to confront parts of myself that I really didn't want to see.  This difficult time has forced me to think a lot about grace and about my own need for grace.  In the midst of all this reflection, I came to a realization:

I don't really want grace.

Why in the world would anyone want grace?  Grace is for the weak.  Grace is for all the people who can't get their act together spiritually.  In this world, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution.  Why would I want to accept that I am accepted when I could just be acceptable?

The truth is that never once in my life have I ever had my act together in any way.  Ask my parents - they can vouch for me.  Even so, I can still pretend that I have it all together.  I can enjoy the experience of having my act together without all the hard work of actually getting it together.  Even if nobody else buys my façade, I can still enjoy the illusion for myself.  Plus, I get to enjoy the perks: from my mountaintop, I get to look down my nose at all the people who don't have their act together like I do.  After all, if I can get it together, then nobody else has any excuse, right?  When someone hurts me, I have the privilege of throwing proverbial stones.  Knowing that I am better than the less evolved lifeform who hurt me makes the pain much easier to bear.¹

There is a danger in judging other people.  Jesus warns us that we judge people at our own risk, for we ourselves will be judged by the same standards by which we judge others.  Notice that Jesus does not say specifically that, if you judge someone else, then God will be the one to hold you accountable to your own standards.  God just might be the merciful one in this matter.  Your judge might be someone with the impudence to call you a hypocrite.  Worse yet, your judge might be your own conscience.  Whatever the details, at some point, your own high horse will throw you off and kick you in the head.

Judging people is dangerous because, someday, you just might end up facing the same difficult decision faced by the person who hurt you.  On that day, you just might find that you don't have any other option but to make the same choice as the person you once condemned.  On that day, you just might find that you are not any better or stronger than that person.  On that day, your cries for justice will become indictments against you.  On that day, the stones you threw at someone else will be lobbed back at you.

On that day, your own judgmentalism will knock you down and beat the crap out of you.

The kind of grace I want least is forgiveness.  One does not need forgiveness unless one has done something that needs to be forgiven.  Why would I want forgiveness when I could just be a good person?  If I do hurt someone, I don't want to be forgiven: I want to take my punishment like a man.

Grace is painful because truly accepting grace means admitting that you actually need it: it means admitting that you actually don't have your act together spiritually.  Grace is especially painful when someone you hurt is more forgiving toward you than you were toward someone who hurt you in the past.  This kind of grace burns like salt rubbed into a fresh wound.  I would much rather endure the wrath of the person I hurt than the wrath of my own conscience.

So here I lie at the side of the road - beaten, broken, and humbled - knowing that I am not a victim and not a part of the solution but rather just another part of the problem.  I'm just another one of the billions of spiritually needy people on this planet who need grace.  All I can do now is to get up, spit the dirt out of my mouth, dust myself off, and continue on my journey, limping down the road.


Notes:

1. Yes, I am fully aware of how psychotic that paragraph was.  I'm beginning to think that maybe arrogance requires a measure of insanity.

The image featured in this introspection is public domain.