Disruptive Grace
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 05:59PM 
I think a lot about grace. Frankly because people need it, I need it. Irish rock star Bono has said, "Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff."
When i swim around in grace I try encounter grace in a holistic manner and not in the one sided way that we normally encounter and receive it. Usually, we do something, say something or experience an event that needs grace or to be redeemed because "I feel bad about it." The human tendency is to look for grace as a sentiment. In other words, I need to "feel better" about myself so I need this thing called grace. The result being I will "feel" better, then I can go on with my life again until I need this thing called grace because I feel bad about something again. Grace is not a commodity to grasp it is a person to receive.
This mindless circling is a cheap thrill, a narcotic that anesthetizes us from the real need. The real need is to truly be transformed by grace, by God in Christ. Grace is meaningless unless it disrupts, changes and transforms all which, in turn, leads to gratitude. Jean-Paul Sarte once defined sin as the "systematic substitution of the abstract (a sentiment) for the concrete (the work of Christ that brings new)." When all we do is journey to posses the sentiment, satisfy the sentiment and feel better-we really do not have what we are searching for. In fact, we fall deeper and deeper into the meaninglessness of emotion.
Grace recognizes need, accepts responsibility, receives forgiveness, and grows in a new direction. Something good comes from the brokenness, pain and irritant. Holiness is not a destination or an event it is a direction, a process and a journey. Without pain and flaw nothing new can emerge. Consider the oyster and pearl. A parasitic worm, masquerading as a grain of sand, drills its way through the oyster shell in search of a home. To defend itself the mollusk secretes nacre around the invader for about eight years, forming a perfect sphere. That perfect sphere is called the pearl. A gem is made from gashes of violent torment. Wounded ness and weakness leads to anew beauty.
Who is not overwelmed with the grace that disrupts, transforms and unleashes yet again to a more effervescent future? Disruptive grace is difficult, but it is a good difficult. While grace is many things it certainly is not purely a sentiment. This good difficult of a disruptive grace dances, shines and creates anew.
Reader Comments (1)
I love the fact that you used different examples to describe grace. I felt what grace meant to you just by reading your post. It's like a melancholic tune that keeps on playing.