Grace Upon Grace

The other day I was standing in line at the grocery store, minding my own business. I was thinking about what I had to do when I got home, making dinner was on that list so I was going over in my mind if I had everything I needed. I was sure I did. With that I kind of awakened to my surroundings as the end of the conveyor belt came open for me to put things down. (Okay, my business had been minded, now I could mind someone else’s business.)

It was then that I thought the people in front of me were obviously planning a nice steak dinner that night; steak, baking potatoes, some sort of sauce mix, etc. It was a couple who looked different than I do. He had long hair and many tattoos all over his forearms. He was bagging their relatively small order as she prepared to pay. She dug in her pocket, pulled out her Access card, and started to swipe it.

Now,  I absolutely love it when grace is extended me. Sometimes I recognize it as what is, undeserved favor. Sometimes I seem to think I earned it or deserve it, knowing that’s not really true. But the hardest part about grace for me is extending it!

My immediate reaction to this scene at the grocery store was to think that he looked like an able-bodied man, why wasn’t he paying for the food if she needed food stamps? Was he even working? If they do need food stamps, should they be spending a chunk of it on an expensive steak?

Before this had gone very far I felt like God was convicting me about my lack of grace. Was there any grace in my thoughts? After all, I know absolutely nothing about this couple. I will not have to stand in their place at judgment to give an answer for why they have lived as they do. It is between God and them, not me and them! I felt rebuked by God.

I believe that God means it when He says, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” (Notice it says if he is not willing, not if he is not able. 2 Thessalonians 3:10.)  The Proverbs are full of warnings about being a sluggard and how quickly laziness can lead to poverty. But, I did not know these people. If they are sluggards God knows it, I don’t have to figure it out or even have an opinion about them, specifically.

I do think I am required to have an opinion about welfare and people who are unwilling to work. God has told me what to think about them. For all I know the man bagging those groceries had been out pounding the pavement all day looking for work and was embarrassed that the woman was paying with her Access card.

As jobs grow scarce – and more scarce — I know there will be more and more people who appear to be not doing things right, i.e., the way I think they ought to be done. Access cards may be the only access some families have to food each week.

The Lord seems to be giving me this test of grace. Will I show it? How much will I show? Though I never said a word to the customers or to anyone else who was around me at the time,  God heard it. He heard what was coming out of my heart and He rebuked me for it. Again, this was in His grace. It is His grace that keeps us close to Him. In John 1:16 John says, “ And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

How will we, in turn, extend it?