Introspection: Screeching Tires and Grace

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

Screeching Tires and Grace

Scripture:

Therefore, as God’s choice, holy and loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with each other and, if someone has a complaint against anyone, forgive each other. As the Lord forgave you, so also forgive each other.

Colossians 3:12-13 (CEB)

A thousand times I've failed

Still Your mercy remains

And should I stumble again

Still I'm caught in Your grace

From "From the Inside Out" by Joel Houston (Hillsong United)

There is nothing like the sound of screeching tires to ruin my day, particularly if that sound is coming from my own car. This is one sensation I experienced last Friday night when my car spun out of control and collided with another vehicle on the highway. The accident happened in a blur, but eyewitnesses to the incident helped me to fill in the missing pieces.

I was driving on a highway in my town when the driver in the lane to my right made an illegal lane change. In my efforts to avoid being sideswiped, I lost control of my car. My car spun three-fourths of the way around, collided with the other car, spun another halfway around, and ended up on the right side of the road. The other car, after my car collided with it, spun around 180 degrees and ended up on the median. In light of the circumstances, I could not have asked for a cleaner wreck. No other cars were involved in the incident; traffic was not halted; and, most importantly, nobody was injured.

Later that night, after riding back home in the wrecker that towed my car, I felt as though a lot of grace had been given to me. My car spun out of control on a normally-busy highway and only collided with one other car. A kind couple who had witnessed the accident took the time to return to corroborate my account to the police officer who arrived on the scene. The other driver and I did not get into an argument. A friend of mine who happened to see my car on the side of the highway texted me to see if I was alright, and I received a lot of supportive messages on Facebook after I posted about the accident.

God calls people to extend Grace to each other in the form of things like kindness, humility, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness. The kindness extended to me that evening makes me want to be more gracious to other people. I am a firm believer in the "pay it forward" philosophy, the idea that grace given to a person should not be paid back to the giver but rather "paid forward" to another person who needs it. In this way grace can spread like a beautiful chain reaction. The good people who stopped to help me left before I could get their contact information, so I might not be able to pay them back. Still, I consider myself indebted to anyone involved in a car accident that I witness.

Grace was a bit more difficult to recognize in my life in the days that followed the accident. In fact, I have even asked some of my friends to pray that I'll have patience as I deal with problems resulting from the accident. The warm, fuzzy feelings I experienced last Friday night faded as I had to deal with car rentals and insurance companies along with the typical frustrations and drama of my life with freshly-frayed nerves. In the past week, some of the worst parts of my personality - negativity about how things might turn out, anger about my circumstances, and frustration with myself - have bubbled up the surface a number of times, and I am less than proud of the things I have said and of the attitudes I have exhibited.

Sometimes I feel as though God is testing me and that I am earning an F on every test.

In an attempt to bring some normality back to my life, I went to two of my favorite haunts yesterday, namely a coffee shop and a bookstore. As I browsed the religion section, I came across a book that quoted the following proverb in the dedication:

The righteous may fall seven times but still get up,

but the wicked will stumble into trouble.¹

If you are familiar with biblical numerology, then you know that the number seven represents completeness. With that in mind, I wonder if King Solomon meant that, though people may fail over and over and over again, they are righteous if they keep on trying.

There are parts of our lives that can be difficult or nearly impossible for us to shake. Often we feel as though we simply need to grit our teeth and try harder, but that usually seems to do more harm than good. St. Paul, in one of his letters, mentions an unspecified "thorn in the flesh."² We typically think anything related to "the flesh" as something bodily, but "the flesh" could also refer to the self or to the ego. Sometimes I wonder if Paul was referring to a certain moral failure with which he struggled. In another letter, he writes, "I don't know what I'm doing, because I don't do what I want to do. Instead, I do the thing that I hate."³

When Paul prayed for God to rid him of this "thorn in the flesh," God said to him, "My grace is enough for you, because power is made perfect in weakness."⁴ Perhaps God was telling Paul that he did not have to be faultless because God loved him in spite of his faults. Theologian Paul Tillich might paraphrase God's answer, "Simply accept the fact that you are accepted."⁵ In a strange way, we need moral weakness in our lives to help us understand the power of God's grace and unconditional love, to help us understand that "God shows His love for us," as Paul puts it, "while we were still sinners."⁶ Otherwise we might fool ourselves into believing that God loves us because of our goodness.

God has extended grace to all of us because God loves us. In turn, we are called to love each other and to extend grace to each other. Perhaps it is also necessary for us to give grace to ourselves as well. On the subject of forgiveness, David A. Seamands writes:

There is no forgiveness from God unless you freely forgive your brother from your heart. And I wonder if we have been too narrow in thinking that brother only applies to someone else. What if you are the brother or sister who needs to be forgiven, and you need to forgive yourself? Does it not apply to you too? The Lord says to forgive your enemies. What if you are the worst enemy?⁷

I think that this can be said of other forms of grace besides forgiveness.

The world around us can be very graceless at times, but I think that sometimes we are harsher with ourselves than we are with other people. I know that I have said to myself things that I would hopefully never say to another person. If we are unwilling to give grace to ourselves, then have we truly accepted the grace God has given us? Are we truly listening to what God says about us if we are consistently condemning ourselves for our faults? A couple of years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to the concept of self-compassion, the idea that one should offer to oneself the same compassion, patience, and kindness one would ofter someone else. I think that this is a biblical concept, for Christ said, "You must love your neighbor as you love yourself."⁸

As I continue to deal with the aftermath of the car accident, I pray for God's help to remember the grace God has given me, help to extend grace to others in the midst of upcoming frustrations, and help to extend grace to myself when I fail miserably to be gracious. Whatever troubles you face right now, I pray for the same help for you the reader as well.

Notes:

1 - Proverbs 24:16 (CEB)

2 - 2 Corinthians 12:7

3 - Romans 7:15 (CEB)

4 - 2 Corinthians 12:9 (CEB)

5 - Paul Tillich. The Shaking of the Foundations. ch. 19

6 - Romans 5:8 (CEB)

7 - David A. Seamands. Healing for Damaged Emotions. 1981, David C Cook. pp. 30-31

8 - Matthew 22:39 (CEB) (emphasis added)

I took the picture of my damaged car the day after the accident.

If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.