Grace, again

I've posted about grace before, because my women's Bible study is reading Phillip Yancey's What So Amazing About Grace. The reason I was really looking forward to studying grace, is because it seemed like such an elusive to concept to me. At heart, I'm a perfectionist and don't extend a lot of grace to myself, so I think that's part of what made it difficult to understand. Also (and I've said this before), I think grace is something that's more easily understood in it's expression that it's theory.

So here's what I find more amazing than anything - that it is just so unnatural. Grace (and forgiveness, because the two concepts are irrevocably intertwined) goes against every natural law of our hearts that cries for justice and balance and fairness. And yet, at the same time, it's the only solution. Without grace and forgiveness, especially on a national/societal level, there can never be peace. We will continue to seek justice and revenge for the wrongs committed against us, and when we think we've achieved it, our victims will rise up to demand justice and revenge against us. It's the story of every conflict in human history, and the only end to it is for someone, one country, one people, to extend grace and forgiveness and accept that the scales of justice will remain unbalanced.

And while all of this is true on a global level, I think it also applies to us individually as well. Grace feels just as unnatural whether its extended to the perpetrators of the Holocaust or to a friend who has hurt my feelings with selfish words. And yet, without it, there's no peace, no resolution.