teachin' me grace

God has been teaching me a lot about grace lately. Words always fall short.

I was part of a conversation with a person struggling with a drug addiction we ran into on Sunday after the fireworks downtown. God showed me a small snippet of his love for that person during the divine appointment we had with them. The backdrop was a gay bar we had parked in front of by accident. As I reflected over the backdrop on the way home, I felt sadness for them. I am reading a book on grace right now, and the following day, the chapter I read focused on the struggle of one man who struggles with homosexual tendencies. How he had divorced his wife and left his children. The book talked about the Christian culture and how hateful it has been towards these people. Last time I checked, Jesus wasn’t hatin’ on the outcasts and the people with struggles. He loved them. He extended grace to them. I didn’t ever read of him giving a high five to someone committing adultery, but he did love them in spite of their sin. Kind of like how he died for all of us, despite our sin, our position as enemies of himself. It has really made me re-examine how I’ve joked in the past about homosexuality. People are in an all out struggle with this tendency, I realize my need to extend more grace, more tact, more love. It is interesting for me to realize now that grace isn’t grace unless the one extending it pays a price. I think in the past I saw grace as ignoring a problem, bending the truth. Rather, I see it now as a sacrifice made with love for those who may not even want it.