Skip to main content

Are You A Grace Hoarder?

"When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened."  Jonah 3:10

Are you someone who wants grace quickly given to you, yet you tend to be slow to extend grace towards others? 

I am.

I admit that ashamedly.  I want all of my shortcomings overlooked, all of my sharp-toned words forgiven, and all of my failures quickly forgotten.

Unfortunately, when it comes time for me to bestow that same grace to others, my response time is a little bit slower than what it should be.  My sin nature takes over and I quickly forget what it feels like to be the one in need of grace.

This unfortunate state of mind is very reminiscent of a character we see in the Old Testament.  This gentleman is Jonah.

You're probably familiar with Jonah's story, but let me shed some light into Jonah's heart for you.  Jonah was like me.  He wanted grace granted to him, but he absolutely did not want any grace shown to those who so desperately need it, the Ninevites.

Jonah had been instructed by God to go to Nineveh and to preach against its wickedness, telling them that their city would be overturned in forty days.  Out of disobedience, Jonah went in the opposite direction, boards a ship for the city of Joppa, and ended up finding himself in a horrific storm, and ultimately in the belly of a whale.

However, the whale swallowing Jonah was a very clear offering of God's grace.  God very well could have let Jonah get thrown overboard and swallowed by the tumultuous sea that was raging.  However, our God is so gracious!

Where some might have seen three days and nights in the belly of a whale as punishment, for Jonah, it was a gift of grace.  It was the gift of a second chance.  It was the gift of life.

Unfortunately, Jonah forgot all about this beautiful picture of grace whenever he went about the task at hand and actually convinced the Ninevites to repent and turn from their evil ways.  You see, Jonah didn't want God to offer the Ninevites the same grace that he was given.  In his heart, he truly wanted to see the Ninevites destroyed, just as God had threatened.

"He prayed to the Lord, "O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home?  That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish.  I knew that you are a gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.  Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."  Jonah 3:2-3

This prophet's heart was so out of sync with God's that he'd rather see his life taken away than to see the Ninevites receive restoration.  He had wanted his second chance to live, but he didn't want anyone else to have one.  He knew that God was gracious, but he wanted to hoard all of that grace for himself.

Does your heart resemble Jonah's?

Is grace only good when you're on the receiving end?

Let's go a step farther.  Do you have a hard time accepting the fact that the same grace that is offered to you by Christ's death on the cross is also offered to a murderer, or a thief, or a sex offender?

Let's all take a moment to do a heart check and determine how our heart might look like Jonah's.  Then spend some time confessing that to God and thanking him for the beautiful display of grace through Christ on the cross.  Ask God to show you how you can be a more frequent grace-giver and not just a grace-getter.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Heartfelt Reflections of a Country Church

The smells, sounds, and people of country churches stir an emotion within me that is deep and powerful. For those who have never had the opportunity to experience this blessed experience, let me explain.   From the moment you step into the vestibule (never called a foyer in a rural church), you instantly smell the footsteps of every person who has crossed that threshold - the mother with a load of kids in tow, the farmer, the truck driver, the wayward child. If those paneled walls could talk, they would tell of grace and guilt and sorrow and joy that couldn’t be hidden on the faces of the souls that dared to cross that doorway. Those walls would write books of clinched fists, tears on the altar, and singing from the saints. The smell of the aged carpet, whose color may have caused an outright quarrel in a business meeting, the creak of the floor, and the golden memorial tags lead you to a nostalgic thing of days gone by - a pew, padded if you’re lucky.   As you wait for the ob...
Post a Comment
Read more

I love my kids, BUT. . . .

"Schoolhouse Rock" was one of mine and my husband's favorite educational past times.  Bob Dorough, writer for "Schoolhosue Rock," was a genius when he put educational factoids to quirky music and cute cartoons.  From the preamble to the Constitution, to parts of speech, multiplication facts, how electricity works, and much more, Mr. Dorough slyly disguised learning and actually made it fun! Like all good parents, we passed this educational relic on to our kids.  One of our favorite songs from "Schoolhouse Rock" is without a doubt " Conjunction Junction ."  Its jazzy rhythm easily gets stuck in your head for the rest of your day ( sorry in advance! ).  This song teaches how conjunctions mechanically work in a sentence and what their purpose is.  The conjunction 'BUT' is one that we use all the time to connect two sentences or a clause to a sentence. "I like pizza,  BUT  I don't like olives on it." "I want to...
2 comments
Read more

Taking the Mask Off

If I’ve learned anything over the last few weeks of wearing masks when going out in public, it’s that wearing a mask makes it hard to breathe.   The trapped air recirculating in and out gets thick and burdensome. The same is true for the invisible mask I wear on the days that I’m trying to hide the reality of what’s going on below the surface.   There comes a point when the air that has gotten trapped between my invisible mask and my unfortunate reality gets so heavy that ripping it off and gasping for a dose of fresh, life-giving oxygen is the only remedy.   ( Cue the proverbial mask selfie that everyone has had to take during quarantine. ) I think many of us frequently wear a mask, intentionally or unintentionally, to hide the reality of what’s underneath. We mask up to present a façade. A watered-down version of the true us. A suffocating misrepresentation of our current existence.  We’re all guilty.  One of my favorite person...
16 comments
Read more