I’ve been singing about how it’s amazing ever since I can remember, but what is it?  The church definition I’ve always rattled off is “unmerited favor”.  While that’s not wrong, more and more it strikes me as horribly deficient in conveying the magnitude, complexity, and beauty of grace.

When I examine my life, I’m faced with a growing stack of evidence proving that I am broken, along with the rest of humanity.  It doesn’t surprise me, but it is unsettling to look back and see a thread of flawed behavior throughout my experiences.  I’m lazy.  Prideful.  Selfish in more ways than I can count.  Worst of all, I’m often deluded enough to think that I’m doing just fine.  Viewing my actions and desires in light of God’s holiness and abhorrence of sin, there exists a huge chasm between my humanity and His divinity.  I can’t sound the depth of my brokenness any more than I can measure the height of His perfection.  The more I think about and examine this distance the greater it becomes.

Of course, that’s not the whole story.

God bridged that gap on the cross.

Christ embodied grace by becoming one of us, living among us, and taking our sin that separated us from Him.  That would be completely amazing all by itself, but grace doesn’t stop there.  The Holy Spirit has set up shop inside my heart, right in the middle of all the brokenness and failure.  He convicts me of sin.  He heals my hurt.  He shows me ways to truly love other people. God is working on me to make me like Him, and He manages to also work through me in the process, despite my flaws.  He takes joy in doing this, because it’s part of His character.  God defines grace; there will never be a better example than His interaction with humanity.

I wrestle with this grace because it is so extravagant, so irrationally above and beyond what I expect and deserve.  I can’t pay it back, and any attempt to earn it only insults and belittles God’s generosity in giving it.  I can’t wrap my mind around grace, or do it justice with my words, but I have experienced it, and in that I understand it somehow.  And it is pretty amazing.