I remember when I started to recover the memories of my horrific childhood. There were many things I needed washed off of me in those days. This set of memories was from a long list of atrocities. My human mind had no way to grab hold of reconciling my everyday life within the context of what I was now knew. 

I remember one time when the Lord wanted to help me in having perspective.

He took me to the story of the unforgiving debtor. The man had owed the king a tremendous sum of money. The king had ordered that if he did not pay he should be cast into debtor‟s prison, with his family. The man begged. Pease forgive my debt. Please don‟t send me to prison. Please have mercy on me. 

The king forgave the man. The man went on his way, only to happen across a servant that owed him money. The amount was a fraction of what he had owed the king. The man demanded, pay what you owe me! The servant did not have the money. The man then ordered for the servant to be thrown in the same prison he had just been pardoned from!

The Lord explained it this way.

Because of whom he is, because of his holiness, his love and his mercy, any time in my ordained number of days that I am not fully turned towards him and on my face worshipping him, the majesty of who he is, I am missing the mark, or sinning. He created me and holds me together by his focus on me. He gave me my essence, the free will to develop it. He gave me gifts. He loves me so much he gave himself as a sacrifice so I could spend eternity with him. He made a way for me to find healing and be free. He did it all. All that I am or have is because of him. When I am not in full acknowledgement of this, I am in sin.

Not only that, but my sin is far greater, against him, than any sin that could ever be committed against me. I am the man who owed the king a debt I could never repay. And he, in his mercy, has forgiven me.

Anyone who sins against me owes me a smaller amount that I owed the king. When I demand justice, or payment from another who owes me a lesser amount, I am like the man who was shown mercy and withheld mercy from others.

This understanding has both enlarged my understanding of the nature of God, the reality of the cross, and the necessity for my heart to live in mercy.

This understanding has helped me to extend grace because I have received grace.

In those days it seemed like what was done against me was worse than anything the Lord experienced. In the middle of pain it is hard to see clearly. It felt righteous to say that since we have no record of him being sodomized, that he could not identify with it. And, he could not say that this atrocity happened to him. What I didn‟t realize was the immense truth that not only did he endure torture to become healing for my abuse, but he also endured the cross so those who hurt me could be forgiven as well. That it was far more, what he accomplished, than the pain of the original event. And he did it for everyone, for every sin ever committed. 

My father in law got sick recently- bladder infection. He got incoherent. He started talking about historical events. I saw, in the spirit, that he was reliving grudges he had borne and anger that was unresolved. As this window was open, I saw that Jesus was standing beside me. I had the favor to catch my relative‟s attention. I said, look, here is Jesus. He replied, who is that? And immediately he returned his focus to a grudge where he had vowed to get even, and he was considering how he could wreak his own justice. In the spirit, I was vexed. I knew if he could not release those things, he would miss receiving the mercy Jesus had for him. 

Bad stuff happens that we are not responsible for. But we are responsible for how we respond. We can choose Jesus, who fixes it all. Or we can refuse him, and be doomed to the failure of our own machinations in making wrong things right.

Part of it, part of what is hard, is trust, of course. If I perceive he was not there when bad things happen, then it may be hard to believe he will do anything now, or that he will make a difference in my eternal state. When I was little, I saw more bad than good. I believed darkness had power, more power than God. 

But, enter…grace. I didn‟t have to have absolute faith that he was who he said he was. I didn‟t have to believe that he would heal me completely, or make the wicked ones pay. All I really needed was a desperation that was certain I needed something more than I had, and a willingness to be shown that he was that something. I think my prayer was, if you are real, please show me. I need help.

Recently I read a sermon that was written by Jonathan Edwards. It is called, Sinners in the hand of an Angry God. He talks about how short we fall. And how, in our fallen place, we arrogantly dishonor the reality of who God is. I know there are still areas in me that do not acknowledge his omnipotence, his omniscience and his mercy. He could stop thinking about me for a nanosecond and I would cease- it would be as though I had never been. But he waits. Not only does he wait, but he did all the hard part- he already proved himself by dying for me. And he is the creator of all things. He has every right to force my adoration. But he waits. He wants my love to be my choice. That still amazes me. Grace grace.

I heard a friend tell a story when he came to town about Billy Sunday. He was emphasizing how Billy would go into an area. Just being on a street, he carried so much of the presence of the Lord, that bars, nearby to the street where he was ministering, bars that he was not personally entering, would close. I was so provoked by this story. I asked the Lord to show me how to carry him like that. Over the next several hours, he took me into a passage in the Bible where a child was possessed and the disciples could not heal him. What was revealed in the passage was that it was an issue of unbelief. I asked the Lord to show me where I move in this, so that I could remove it from me. His response was simple. Any time I question his timing, or determine that I think I know better, anytime that I decide stuff about God because my mind does not agree, I am acting in unbelief. 

I did not receive Jesus because I have perfect faith. It is him in me that makes my faith perfect. When I consider how much unbelief still finds home in me I become aware of greater amounts of grace.

Grace means I don‟t have to have it all together. I do not have to understand it all. God‟s grace comes for me because it is who he is. It is not because I did something terribly right. Or because someone who knows me prayed the right prayer. Grace means that in my imperfection, I can meet God and not be destroyed.

Grace means that the worst of me he has already seen. And died for.

Grace means I don‟t have to be religious or rigid to earn him, to be worthy of his love.

There is nothing I could ever do, or not do, that would change his love for me, because- he is love.

Grace means I get to feel that love and be restored by it.

Grace offers me hope when I blow it, time after time. Not as a license to choose badly, but as the acknowledgement that despite my best effort I will screw up and he will cover it and reconcile me again to himself if I want him to.

Grace means the cross, and all that was accomplished there, is bigger than me.

Grace means I get to see beyond myself and my limits.

Grace has a flavor. It is freedom.

Grace is something that is absent in hell.