“Grace can’t be earned.”

A thought by Andy Stanley, (2010-10-19) from his book, The Grace of God (Kindle Location 116). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

I was sitting in my spot at Starbucks this morning with my table all organized and a man came up and asked if he could sit in the other chair. There was no other place to sit so I begrudgingly said, “yes” so he sat down and started using his half of the table. Now that kind of griped me so I wasn’t really very friendly or I should say very gracious to him. He had invaded my space without me asking him to.

I didn’t respond much better the whole time he was there. In other words, i blew it in being gracious to him. My pride and my feeling of being inconvenienced got in the way of my being gracious.

I went home and started getting ready to move some stuff over to our storage unit and I carried it down to the car, put it into the car, ready to run up and get some more stuff and then realized that I had locked my keys in the car to the car and to our apartment. Now I was looking for God’s graciousness on my part to help me work it all out. I wasn’t gracious to the man but I wanted God to be gracious about the mistake I had made and help me get my keys back.

Now after a long ordeal I got my keys and finally moved the stuff over to the storage unit and then decided to sit down and write this blog. I was having some real problems and then I was pulled to this thought and it then hit me how ungracious I was earlier in the day but of how God was so gracious to me. You see, grace is not earned. In no way did I deserve God’s help in my situation when I had treated someone whom He loves and whom He had put in my path the way I did.

When I realized what I had done and felt the remorse and guilt of it I stopped and asked God’s forgiveness and hoped that I would get another chance so that I could rectify my rudeness with the man.

In no way did I deserve His grace but He gave it to me.

So how has your day gone?

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