I've come to believe that the secret to extending grace is remembering where you came from. This is true for me personally, professionally, and spiritually.
As a parent, it can sometimes be a challenge extending grace to your kids when you are confronted with behavior that is completely unacceptable or inappropriate, especially when you know your child knows better and is perfectly capable of behaving appropriately. My daughter is a good girl, smart with a empathetic heart and a great head on her shoulders. But she is also often too smart for her own good, and she is fiercely independent. You can imagine the behavioral cocktail this can produce from time to time, especially when combined with variables like hunger or tiredness. :) There are times when it is all I can do to control my anger and frustration. And to be honest there are times when I fail to control those things and I have to go to both God and my daughter for forgiveness.
What helps me maintain control and keep perspective during these situations is to consciously recognize that my daughter is a chip off the 'ole block. She behaves exactly as I did at her age! And not just the negative stuff. We share so many of the same interests and passions. Our senses of humor are very similar. She experiences things intellectually and emotionally in much the same ways that I do. The things that drive me to distraction are the same things that drove my own parents bonkers when I was 9-ish. I have to remember where I came from. I have to remind myself my daughter is, after all, just a 9 year old little girl, and that I was just like my daughter in so many ways. And ultimately she is the miraculous little person that she is because of me, positive and negative. 50%, anyway. My wife gets half the credit/blame. ;)
The point is when I remember where I came from, I can remember that I am no different from my daughter, if three decades removed. This does wonders when it comes to extending her grace for just being who she is.
Professionally, my job is basically enabling and equipping other companies' sales people to sell my company's solutions. I've been doing this sales thing for about 17 years now, and I've learned A LOT over the years. I work primarily with entry-level sales people in their first sales position. Most work for an organization that does not provide any real, practical sales training. It's a sink or swim sort of environment for them. On paper my job is to train them on the nuances of selling my employer's particular suite of solutions, and assist with their customer demos, etc. But I find more often than not I'm teaching them the basics of how to sell. We're talking "Sales 101" type stuff. I want them to swim, not sink, sometimes because I want to help them succeed, but mostly because I get paid when they succeed, and I want to get paid.
Not a day goes by that I don't get frustrated with a sales person's complete lack of sales acumen. Things that to me are basic blocking and tackling (those of you who know me are currently amazed that I used a sports metaphor) are completely alien concepts to them. Their ability to sell is what ultimately puts food on MY family's table, so it can be infuriating. Head-against-a-wall type of infuriating. I'd be lying if I said there were not days I wanted to yell and scream at people (some of whom have MBAs, mind you), "Are you !@#$%&* kidding me?!! This is basic sales, how can you not get this stuff?! How do you still have a job?!"
But I don't yell. Mostly I don't pitch a fit because I have to maintain a professional working relationship with these folks, and while I may be a lot of things, I don't think "jerk" is one of them. Not anymore, at least. (That's a completely different post.) But secondly I restrain myself because I remember when I was in their shoes. I was once a new sales person with no one to teach me the basics, learning the ropes through trial and error. I was cocky, arrogant. I saw sales as a contest of wills with my prospect. I thought I could belittle or embarrass people into buying from me (that doesn't work well, by the way). I had no clue. Thank God I had several excellent sales managers who saw some raw potential in me and took me under their wing. I learned from them that good selling is just listening to your customer with a sincere desire to help them overcome their challenges. It's helping -- serving -- people and organizations, combined with mastering the skill of identifying those people and organizations that your particular "widget" can help. Add to that some stints with large corporations that had the budget to put me through some of the world's best sales training programs, and the bottom line is I had a lot of help. Now I want to give that help to others.
Every day I have to remember where I came from so I can assist the folks I work with in their quest to leave that same place. This helps me extend grace. It helps me respond with empathy instead of frustration.
Spiritually I think it is no different for a Christ Follower when it comes to how we engage a fallen world. We're face to face with rampant sin every day, be it from individuals or just the culture at large. It's easy to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. I believe that if we are to interact with people in anything approaching the way Christ Himself did, it is vital that we remember where we came from. We have to have a theologically accurate understanding of our own depravity so that we can grasp the magnitude of the grace extended to us by the Father through the sacrifice of His Son.
Some Believers were saved out of truly horrible circumstances. They were quite literally rescued from the brink by Christ from addictions, depression, and dark despair. They committed acts that even the most godless human being would condemn as unconscionable. Such individuals may find it easier to extend grace to others who find themselves trapped in similar cycles. But for many of us, we look back on our lives before Christ, and while we completely acknowledge our sinful nature and need for a Savior, we can sometimes view our past through a very human, horizontal lens and say, "I wasn't really THAT bad. I mean sure, I did such-and-such, but it's not like I did this-and-that." Such thinking is completely out of line with Spiritual reality. It is vital that we understand the truth of Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God." God is Holy. Purely Holy. The most inconsequential sin by human reckoning separates us as completely from God's holiness as does the most heinous crime imaginable.
In order to be able to extend grace to a sinful world, believers have to remember where they came from. We have to remember that prior to being covered by the redeeming blood of Christ, our sins, regardless of how we may have rationalized them as "minor," kept us just as apart from God as anyone else's. We are no better. The only way we can even begin to think of ourselves as "better" is when we use a human scale. We compare ourselves to some other person we think is "worse than us," and use that comparison to help us feel less guilty about the sin we continue to enjoy and to help us feel more "righteous." But if we use God as the standard -- and He IS the only real standard -- then this entire strategy falls apart. We experience what David Crowder calls a "beautiful collision," when the knowledge of our depravity collides with God's divinity and we finally realize our desperate need for a Savior.
We -- I -- must remember that the only difference between me and any other sinful person for whom I may be harboring comdemnation in my heart and mind is that reasons I do not fully understand, the Holy Spirit allowed me to respond to His conviction, allowed me to see and accept the Truth of the Gospel when it was presented to me. I was given the opportunity to repent of my sin and commit my life to Christ. There is no other difference between me and the worst possible person you can conceive of right now in your mind.
When we understand this about ourselves -- when we remember where we came from -- then and only then can we interact with a fallen and hurting world the way Christ did, with compassion and grace, followed by an unflinching acknowledgment of sin for what it is, and a call to repentance. He delivered all of this in gentleness and love:
"The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”-- John 8:3-12
