For by grace, you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing;
it is the gift of God, not a result of works,
so that no one may boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
This question is a difficult one to answer. Though I believe that people around the world struggle with it, we in the United States have a particularly hard time with this concept. I know that I do. And these three topics I address are the reason that I struggle to accept grace in my own life and the reason I believe that we struggle with it as a country.
The first part of what stands in our way is ourselves. In the US we have the idea of the America Dream, which at its core is the belief that we can do and become whatever we want if we work hard enough. We believe that we will receive whatever we work for and that we deserve whatever we get. The idea of reaping what we sow has been instilled in us from our earliest days. Some may say, that as a society we love getting things for free, but even in this I believe that we subconsciously think that getting something for free is really a way of the cosmos paying us back for being a good person. Think about it, we accept gifts, no problem, unless they are too big. Once it reaches this threshold we feel guilty. I think this is because it is so generous that we cannot justify why we deserve it. With grace, it is the most generous gift we can ever receive with the highest cost that has ever been paid. There is no way that anyone can justify in their mind that they deserve to have the God of the universe die for them. So to accept grace is to accept our own unworthiness.
Psalm 31 does an excellent job at explaining the position we must adopt to accept grace:
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore.
Psalm 31
So we are the first thing that stands in the way of us accepting grace easily. The second is the loss of control. This also stems heavily from the American Dream. We like the idea that we are in control of our own lives, it is not until things start falling apart that we start to look outside of ourselves for a cause. In an average conversation overheard in any public place, you can hear people explain how they brought about their good fortune and blame others for any woe they have suffered. Accepting the fact that someone else helped us or provided our good fortune is contrary to our nature. It reveals the biggest lie we believe that no one else actually believes about us. We have no more control over bringing about our salvation that we do about the orbit of the earth or the flow of the tides. Accepting grace leads to the destruction of the illusion of self-sufficiency. God did for us what we could not do for ourselves, we had no control or say in this. It is this fact that makes grace hard for us to accept.
Then Job answered the Lord and said:
“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:1-6
The third thing that stands in our way is fear. This is wrapped up in the other two. Another aspect of the American Dream, though it is never spoken of, is the idea that we are supposed to be fearless in all that we do. Nothing is supposed to unsettle us. Nothing is supposed to give us pause. It's the belief that we are the greatest nation on earth, we can conquer anything without batting an eye, and as a citizen, we should be as fearless as our nation. This is the lie we most easily see through, because even though we would never say it out loud we are terrified. And what are we terrified of the most?Easy, the things that happen outside of our control. The things we could not stop if we tried. The things that no amount of preparation can prevent or hasten. We are scared to trust God because it forces bravery we are not used to. With Him, we have to face our fears, because the more we know him the more we know we are not in control of anything. God can be trusted and He will destroy our fear.
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10
Grace is hard to accept because to accept it we have to accept so much more. We have to accept that we are undeserving. We have to accept that we are not in control of anything. We have to accept that we are afraid. Grace brings us to our knees, but it is right where we need to be.
Resources:
Why Is Grace So Hard To Accept? (2012, July 3). Retrieved December 22, 2016, from http://www.truthandway.org/blog/why-is-grace-so-hard-to-accept
McNulty, K. L. (n.d.). IMPACT- The Problem With Grace. Retrieved December 22, 2016, from http://www.madradioshow.net/impact/impactgrace.html
Mayer, M. (2014, September 15). Grace is Hard to Receive. Retrieved December 22, 2016, from http://everysquareinch.net/grace-is-hard-to-receive/
Picture borrowed from http://www.flowingfaith.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/11776.jpg
