Grace Received, Grace Given

My job has recently changed and I now work with a different school system. My current job focuses on helping administrators, teachers, parents and students to work through some of the behavior that we see on a daily basis and the hinderance that it has on a student’s education. I only point that out because of what I see, I have to look past the behavior to what’s underneath it. In fact, I have to look at the feelings and the needs that go along with why a person is acting the way that they are. I’m not a social worker, just a person who has had lots and lots of experience dealing with behavior. In fact, I feel (believe) that I went through all those other things in my own life, just to get to this point. I’ve learned (and continue to learn) from my own mistakes and use them to try and help others grow as well.

Why did I tell you all that? Here’s why…..

In dealing with all the issues that are coming up in today’s world, it made me realize how amazing that our God truly is. Not that I EVER had a doubt before, but I know that I ABSOLUTELY see it more so, now. It’s my job to try and figure out why the student is acting the way he or she is. Yet, we have a God who already knows why we are acting the way that we are. He puts up with so much from us and still wants a relationship with us! Even though He sees and knows all, He gives us free will but He wants us to trust Him and give that will back to Him when things aren’t going quite right in our life or in the world. He gave us guidelines and rules (the Bible) that tell us what to look for, how to act and what to do so that can put us on that pathway to Him. He also gave us His Son, Jesus, just to save us from our own sinful nature. He wants us to be with Him in Heaven when our time on earth is done. Why? That’s His Grace that we’ve received…. and it was freely given!

The thing is, is that we have a God who loves us more than we love ourselves.

And here comes another kicker…..

We are called to be a new creation when we accept God into our lives, but how many times have we failed to give that same grace to others? We are so quick to jump and condemn the person who is acting out but fail look at the feeling and the need behind that behavior. Of course, it’s never to excuse the behavior and to not give consequences that are earned, but, grace is instead needed to help that person to work through the why’s and reason’s for their behavior so that they can make better choices in the future. Remember, we have ALL sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. So, we need to take a step back and look at others just in the same way that God looks at us….. with mercy and grace.

So, what have I learned from this? I’m humbled and there are a thousand times that I wish that I could go back and do some things differently, but I can’t. All I can do, is to go down a different path than the one that I was on. This new path has Jesus at the end. This new path is where I am guided by the Holy Spirit. This new path has shown me something that I didn’t think as deeply about before…. God is love and mercy and grace. So, how can I do anything differently as a Christian? Am I always successful? NO! I still continue to work on it because of my sinful nature as a human and I continuously send thanks to Him who created me. I NEED Him to guide me so that I can give out that same grace that I have received.

What can you learn from this? When you fully accept that God loves you and when you realize that He sees past all of the hurt and the pain and the anger that causes you to act out, then you will truly know peace. God doesn’t hold our past over our heads and He certainly doesn’t tell us that we can’t be with Him because of the choices that we’ve made. Know that what we receive from God, can also be given to others. It’s a gift that never loses it’s value when it’s passed on.