The “G” Word
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
“So, here’s a proposition: perhaps it is not simply the emergence of self-consciousness and the rise of our moral knowledge of Death and the Fall that besets us and makes us doubt our own worth. Perhaps it is instead our unwillingness — reflected in Adam’s shamed hiding — to walk with God, despite our fragility and propensity for evil.”
— Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life
No. You guessed it wrong. It’s GRACE.
It’s this five-letter word that seems so short and so small but actually plays a big part — more than most people ever figure out — in our lives.
Whilst reading 12 Rules for Life, the excerpt above was one of, if not THE MOST, striking ones I came across. I’d be bold to say, it pretty much sums up the whole point Jordan Peterson was trying to convey.
If there is something I have always noticed whether I was taking a casual stroll out into the city streets, or just lounging around mentally organising movie-plots in my mind, it was that majority of people live their life either of two ways: ‘I don’t deserve this’ or ‘I deserve so much more’.
And mind you, both of the statements above can be taken positively or negatively. We can either think of something good as something that shouldn’t be given to us, or something bad that we didn’t “earn”. On the other hand, we can mean that we did so much more and ‘why the heck is this just what we’re getting?’.
I have always found fondness in the word DESERVE.
What is it really? Some say it’s something earned. Something bestowed upon, if you’re feeling a little archaic or romantic. Something which is rightfully given after some form of effort had been exerted to the satisfaction of someone or Someone.
If we go by this theory, then GRACE would be its annoying fraternal twin. It’s the antithesis to what most people think the flow of life is. Give and take. Sow and reap.
This is primarily the reason why it’s so easy for us to conclude that when people contribute good deeds to the society, then he or she is deserving of a well-lived life, a white collar career, a peaceful sleep, a bombshell wife or a hottie for a husband, the moon, the stars, Pluto (if it ever gets tired of being a drama king and returns to the natural orbit), and every little good thing we can think of. Of course, as a no-brainer, we necessarily think that when a person commits to a life of douchebaggery and delinquency, he or she needs to be thrown into the fiery pits of Hell and meet either Lucifer or Hades (or both — why stop there? JK).
But consider these verses from the Bible:
“You’re familiar with the old unwritten law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best — the sun to warm and the rain to nourish — to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that.” (Matthew 5:43–47, The Message Version)
“But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, NKJV)
See, the thing about these statements run counter to our natural human instincts. It doesn’t coincide with what society, history and culture has taught us. Because time and time again we are taught that black is black and white is white. That whatever we put out there is the same kind which will come back to us (even ten-folds, as some people like to hike up the curse).
So as aptly observed by Jordan Peterson, it’s not really a fact that we do not want to believe, do not want to be saved, do not want to rely on a God who loves us this way — rather, the hesitation emanates from our own selves telling us we can’t or shouldn’t because we don’t deserve it. As most people say it, it’s “too good to be true”.
So we live our lives cynical and ever elusive to whatever God can and is offering us. We go for relationships that we feel are just about the level of what we should be getting. We would like to come off as someone who wants more (or maybe deep down inside we do aspire it), but at the end of the day we settle for what’s “good enough” by our definition. We go further as studies suggest, to downplay our definition of success and tailor-fit our career applications into those which we deemed we are fitting. Not too high — just right. Because, you know, deserving.
Now some of you might say, ‘well I’m not hurting anybody’. And you could be right. You’re not hurting anybody by minimising your capabilities. Nobody’s scathed when you allow yourself some amount of abuse from non-productive relationships.
But as reality would have it, how we think of ourselves eventually seeps into our interactions with the people we have around us, whether we care to admit it or not. Ever heard of the saying “hurt people hurt people”?
We may think that adapting to the stereotypical way of how society views a person — someone who needs to earn something before they are seen as significant — is a harmless little concept. But when we assess how that thinking flows into how we view our friends, how we set boundaries, how much abuse we subconsciously take in, how long we wait until we try to improve our personal decisions, that is the time when a grace-lived life seems a little more sensible.
One of the greatest minds to ever walk the Earth to date, Albert Einstein, said that crazy is when we keep on doing the same thing over and over again, and YET, expect a different result. That sounds about right.
The grace-bereft life is often times characterised by these traits: unforgiveness, discontentment, greed, hatred, lust and revenge or resentment. In short, a pretty much meaningless process of breathing in and breathing out every day.
Lack of grace is displayed when we compete for personal rather than professional advantage; when we create an atmosphere of constant battles of domination within the same family; when we run after senseless and morally-degrading relationships; when we hold on to grudges as if they serve as spoils of war; when we try to ride the wave of modern materialism with others, accumulating things we don’t really need nor want.
In all these you might see that the common pattern is the lack of direction and the sense of being lost. An overbearing mission to “get to a place” nobody knows of in the first place.
In a book by Hans Wiersma, he said about Martin Luther’s conviction on grace:
“Most interpreters have rightly understood that in Luther’s view, to have a gracious God means to have a God who does not require human beings to fulfill a set of prerequisites in order to receive God’s gift in Christ or to reciprocate God’s giving in order to continue receiving Christ and his benefits. For Luther, to have a God of grace means to believe and trust that through Jesus Christ, God has already met all prerequisites and fulfilled all reciprocations. On this point, Luther found himself breaking new ground (or recovering lost ground) in the understanding of divine grace. Luther “broke” with those theological forebears who taught that divine grace was, in one way or another, partly dependent on human willing and doing. For Luther, God graciously wills and works “all in all.”
If we go back to the book of Mr. Peterson, especially in Chapter 2, it’s a constant pounding of the undeniable truth that the reason we don’t live up to who we really are is because of a misunderstanding of grace, or the allergic reaction to it. We have this nagging belief with a premise that goes “because I am/ did this, therefore _____”. That is the archetypal statement of everything that revolves in our lives. It is a death sentence, not at the very least imposed by God, but by our own mindsets.
And so, naturally, it would be hard, if not sometimes impossible or even ridiculous for us, to consider a God who would willingly forgive, love, guide and understand us, despite the blackness of the depths of our own humanities. Never had I met a sane person who would conclusively and confidently claim that he or she is an unblemished individual, who lives righteously from top to bottom since birth.
And that’s not really false, right?
Who is indeed worthy? Who is deserving of salvation? Who is deserving of blessings? Who, I dare say, is deserving of love?
But in that same group of people who knowingly and intelligently accept the fact of their frailty and humanity, are the same ones who take up the conviction that there is indeed a gift which calls them to be loved. Loved as they are, they were, and whoever they may be in the days to come.
It might be easy to dispute the existence or validity of God’s grace and its imports in our lives using the notion that it is something too obscure or abstract, unexplainable; something that only the “religious” and philosophical would adhere to in the laziness of finding something concrete and methodical to base our thoughts and actions upon. People easily dismiss the clergy or speakers who openly profess their faith with the immortal saying “you’ve never been where I have”. We’d rather believe what is calculable and definite; tangible and scientific. Yet a parade of scientists such as Einstein, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Leibniz, George Mendel, Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, and so many more — learned and men of doctrines and deep thinking — have all acclaimed to the fact that indeed, there is a God, a being where grace emanates from.
And personally, I see a world of difference in there.
Grace was there when I was physically battered and bruised for several months, not knowing if amidst my sleep, my abuser will get up and once and for all grab the huge kitchen knife and stab me to death.
Grace was there when a dear family to me of six lost their father, their sole provider, but not their faith, in the middle of their schooling.
Grace was there when one of my childhood friends was days from passing, but each and everyone of us in that circle, of varied faiths, wept and prayed a single prayer of peace for him, despite our own ignorance and immaturity.
Grace was there when I was accused falsely by hundreds of fingers, and yet justified openly without me having to say a single word in return.
Grace was there when I found the truest of friends after a heaping mountain of betrayal after betrayal.
And I am certain, that none of it, not a single one of these and the many more not mentioned, came from what I earned. Yet God’s grace was in each of these for the sole fact that if we try and observe it, people will always have that nagging, intangible, indescribable urge in themselves — regardless of whether or not we heed it — to do better, evolve, be humane, help, love, and all the other productive traits which we attribute to those who follow God.
Consequently, that is the reason we forgive seventy times seven. It’s the reason people believe in change and a better try at life every single day. It’s the reason people do not see the necessity of returning the favour when a blatant wrong had been done towards us. It’s the confidence that people have in a God who always “works things out for the good of those who love Him.” It’s the proverbial dam to handle all the unruly and unsavoury emotions we have when things do not turn out the way we want them to be.
“This is what grace does. It rescues us from our spiritual blindness. It releases us from our bondage to our rationalism and materialism. Grace gives us the faith to be utterly assured of what we cannot see. It frees us from refusing to believe in anything we cannot experience with our physical senses. But grace does more. It connects us to the invisible One in an eternal love relationship that fills us with joy we have never known before and gives us rest of heart that we would have though impossible. And that grace is still rescuing us, because we still tend to forget what is important, real, and true. We still tend to look to the physical world for our comfort. We still fail to remember in given moments that we really do have a heavenly Father. Grace has done a wonderful thing for us and continues to do more and more.”
― Paul David Tripp
Because for every thing we think we missed, we are given so much more that we never asked for.
So maybe this time, have a try at a life led by grace. A grace only God can really give.
