Lent Day 10 – unCommon Grace

There is the Common grace of creation that works in favor of my life and my flourishing. Truly it is a marvelous and majestic Universe that properly produces innumerable amounts of life. Yet, Common grace is not enough. I’m in need of something more. I’m also in desperate need of an unCommon grace. UnCommon grace cannot be assumed because it is much rarer and not typically embedded in the natural order. It is not as obvious as a beating heart, a pumping lung or complex brain messaging. It is much more hidden from plain sight, but speaks to a greater reality. It is the reality of a desperate need for re-creation. But, to speak of the unCommon grace of re-creation, I must return to another reality of creation. It is the reality of becoming uncreated.

As unbelievably incredible creation is, it is wrought with a poisoned epidemic. It is the epidemic of “death.” Death is all around me. The death of relationships due to painful slights, the death of motivation, creativity and aspirations due to depression or anxiety, the death of marriages due to pain and hurt and distrust, the death of dignity and inherent value due to injustices and unspeakable abuses. The lists of “deaths” goes on and on.  And, of course, there is the ultimate death of life itself.

Sitting in my counseling office and walking along people’s most devastating experiences I have a front row seat to tragedy, pain, fear, anger, selfishness, hate and death among us. There is unimaginable evil and injustice in the word. There are friends and family members and close one’s lost to death with the excruciating pain of grief left in its wake.
What’s much more difficult to clearly see and admit is all the ways that death lives in me. As I find myself in the “less” as I slow down and listen, I hear something other than the amazing grace of God and His creation, I also hear the fear, anger, resentment and evil inside of me. I hear the rejections and the lifeless reactions of bitterness, envy, rage, lies and lusts that war against life in me. There is a poisonous venom inside of me choking life out of me. The Bible calls it "sin." Though the word "sin" has become wildly unpopular and out-of-vogue, the reality of its life-sucking poison is very much alive and active. The problem is insurmountable. The ways that “sin” and death in me have torn down myself and others has been nothing short of devastating.

So the re-creation project begins in the life of Jesus. Jesus has come to undo death in me. To undo the sin that wages war against life inside of me. As I continue to journey these 40 days I get easily discouraged by my impatience with my boys, my unkindness to the barista who takes too long to prepare my coffee or the endless lists of fears that cripple me. I can’t seem to escape the death within me. So, Jesus has come to re-create me. To produce something much different in me. To keep producing life in me. What is asked of me? To simply acknowledge the death within me and seek the life in God.

Jesus undoes death by a simple, humble and profound act. The act of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the first order of life. It is unhooking me from the death inside of me. Ironically, Jesus took on my death so I don’t have to. He undid death in me. THAT is unCommon grace! Today I will seek to acknowledge the sin and death within me and continue the re-creation project of life within me through the complete forgiveness offered to me. I will seek to engage in the miracle of unCommon grace which leads to an unCommon life! Receiving forgiveness requires radical ownership. I must commit to brutal honesty and courageous humility. Above all, it requires trust in the UnCommon grace of Jesus when he declares, "It is finished." Death is finished in me.