Really, Really, Tired of a Cautious Embrace of Grace

A restlessness tingles in my fingers and toes--a restlessness that agitates for a more rested life. Not that I'm busy. I'm not. In fact, I'm actually not busy enough at the moment (maybe hence the overboard introspection). What I want is that inner quiet--the kind I've felt watching a storm blow in, or finally been blessed with as I sat contemplating the sky's reflection in the pond, or sensed as I stuck my face outside a barn window--out of the stuffy silence and into the free air full of barn swallow gymnastics.

I am tired of marshaling argument and counter argument in my mind: I am secure in God's love. Am I secure in God's love? Of course, He's trustworthy. But I'm not. What if I mess things up? Can I trust Him even when I can't trust myself? I'm restless against a whole mindset that I've embraced that teaches me to always contemplate grace in the context of qualifiers and caveats. Is there anything wrong with once in a while talking about God's grace without saying "but" afterwords? Must we always be so desperately cautious when we talk and think about grace? Grace, itself, is rather extravagant.

Re-reading my words, I feel compelled to put the requisite qualifier here: We should never use grace as license to do wrong. There. I said it. And I mean it.

But here's the thing. I don't want to do the right thing because "how dare I not after all God has done for me?" I don't want to do the right thing because I feel ashamed when I consider all the people who have "selflessly" dedicated their lives to causes not nearly as compelling as the Kingdom of God. I'd a whole lot rather do the right thing because of an abiding awareness of God's love in and through me, enabling me to do what is right. See, this last motivation embraces joy, wonder, and reliance on God's love for me. The others serve more as a kind of mental self-flagellation. I think they tend to motivate through fear and shame, a sense of not measuring up.

My status as a redeemed Christian does not mean that now it is my job to "measure up," God having already done the hard part by saving me in the first place. No, the only way I can have a relationship with God, now and forever, is because Christ continues to bridge the impossible distance between us. It is my job (and this through His help) to rely on Him and say "yes" to His promptings--to take His yoke, the yoke which is "easy" because I am not pulling alone. I am pulling with Him.