Being An Example

People tend to go with what they know. As a whole, humans tend to gravitate towards that which is comfortable and understandable to us. I remember back when I was working at the bank, whenever they tried to implement new procedures for us to use, everyone tended to be hostile towards them. There wasn't anything wrong with the new procedures at all. Sometimes they could be more time consuming than the old way of doing things, but they mostly made sense overall to do. Yet, still the employees tended to only do things the new way for about a week or so until things went back to normal. And then they would only do things the new way when someone was watching. It continued to this way until finally someone said something to them about not doing things the old way anymore.

People aren't as obliged to go with what's easy so much as they are to go with what they know. I think that's why we have such a hard time accepting grace. The things we know in life are control and works. When there's a set list of things to do, even if the things are impossible, we have control over what we do. That's why we love the idea of works based salvation. We get that. Our life revolves around getting what we deserve and giving others what they deserve. The idea of grace is that we get what we don't deserve and there's nothing we can do to change that. Control is completely removed from the scenario.

There are very few examples of grace in our lives, so we have a hard time comprehending it. So here's my thought for the day: We as the Church should start doing a better job of giving people a tangible example of what grace is. In John 13:15 Jesus says that He's our example and we should do what He does. He gives grace freely, so we should start doing the same. That means being more generous with our money, not being mad if someone puts a dent in our car door, showing patience with the person who has to be shown how to do something 50 times and even, Heaven forbid, being a slightly less angry driver. People tend to flock towards what they know, so maybe if we start teaching people what grace is, then more people might accept it from God.

So that's my thought for the day. It's simple enough, but hopefully it's poignant.