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Grace
Grace Meditation: Defining Grace
Monday, March 4, 2013 at 11:47AM 
Beware the questions of a child. Yesterday our fourth-grader asked, ”So, what is grace, exactly?” It only took a moment for me to discover “Grace” doesn’t yield to an exact definition.
When I tried to simplify it to “God’s goodness toward us,” she asked, “Then why don’t we just say ‘goodness?’”
When I tried the legal angle her eyes clouded over. I realized I could kill the word if I kept going, so I gave up the legal track.
“Why do people say that ballerinas are ‘graceful’?” she asked. (Great: I have a ten year-old philologist on my hands.) We talked for a half-hour, which is like graduate-level work for someone her age. We could’ve looked up more than 15 dictionary entries for the simple five-letter word, or another five-to-ten idioms ranging from “fall from grace” to “coup de grace,” and we draw no closer to our goal. Dallas Willard’s not much help. John MacArthur far too limiting. A photo of Grace Kelly is closer to the truth.
This is the wonder of Grace: as big as the sky, as close as your next breath. Grace is insubstantial and ethereal—nothing more than an idea—an idea that continues to change the world. Grace is love made practical. Grace empowers. Grace cares not for the argument, but for the people arguing. Grace has an agenda beyond the truth. Grace knows that the frustrated heart would rather sit on the sidelines and be wrong than be forced to run with the schoolyard bullies who are right. Grace turns its nose up at winning the fight and aims instead to win the person. Grace plays the long game.
The only unsatisfying part of God’s Grace is: it’s too big to comprehend. Would we want it any other way?
Please: consider this an invitation to (virtually) sit down with my daughter and give it your best shot. I’ll read her your answers, and spare you her questions.
Reader Comments (6)
Katie, what a great question! One of the reasons why I used to struggle with understanding grace is because I thought of it as a concept or an idea. It was impersonal to me. However, I've recently discovered that grace is a person. I know you know Him very well. Just as it takes time to really get to know people we love, so we are leaning new things about Jesus/Grace as our days with him unfold. Bless you!
Grace Anatomy,
or
Free ticket: Let's see how it fits in context
"So then I asked God to pour free tickets into the lives of the bereaved so they might in no way be hindered from seeing and benefitting from his goodness"
"Lord, as I do not have it within myself, I will need your free ticket to help me forgive"
"Lord, I have sinned. It is only by your free ticket that I will understand and change my ways."
Thanks, Luke, and Ed! I'll be sure to share these responses with my daughter. I hope to hear from lots more folks, so please tell your friends.
I think that the heart of the confusion about the nature of grace is that many in the Christian tradition have turned it into some "thing." This substantive view of grace that makes it a magic energy/substance that turns sinners into saints, bread into flesh, KFC into health food, is simply nuts. I think that the better way to understand it is as the very Presence of God Himself. Grace isn't some kind of gnostic radiation wave off of Being. The biblical portrait for this is from Luke: and they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread. This, I think, helps make more sense of the "by grace you are saved." I prefer the idea that His real-time Presence with me saves me, I "am" saved by I AM. There is, therefore, an intentionality in the relational understanding of grace as Presence that is lacking in the character trait/substance "goodness" or "undeserved mercy" concept. God's grace as a character trait/substance gets me saved as a result of some thing coming off God, i.e., I got wet because I fell into the pool. However, God's grace as His very presence means that Christ's atonement was effective and that He has now made His home in me and we commune as friends. Grace is personal/Personal, not abstract. Just some thoughts.
Grace is as simple as the time we who are conversing here have been freely given through the choice of our parents and our Father in Heaven. The love and mercy part of grace apparently can be understood and acted upon in my mortal time. The part of about living a life without end, possibly available for us to fully grasp, use and savor the gift of grace, might take at least one eternity to fully comprehend (?).
Grace is time enabled by merciful forgiveness for those of us who can’t yet fully capture a moment of perfect righteousness. I keep trying to grasp now but before I can begin to reach for it it is past. It is only from acknowledging and accepting His and my parent’s grace, which I could not earn and was too ignorant to know of in the beginning (for I began knowing nothing), that I am now joyfully at peace with this adventure of life in grace throughout all time.
These are two helpful responses, guys, though I wonder what my 10 year-old will make of them! My thanks to you both. I especially like, " I got wet because I fell into the pool."