I used to have all the answers.
I even had the audacity to give my answers to others.
They were my answers and I was sure I was right. Of course if they were right for me, they were right for you. I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you that you were wrong.
What the heck happened?
Life took its inevitable turns and my answers no longer worked. My pat explanations no longer satisfied or even made sense. While living my way to new answers I have discovered that it’s much more about grace than it is about certainty, more about love than legality, more about listening than opining, more about letting go than about claiming to be in control.
My answers now look more like questions. Instead of allowing uncertainty to make me feel anxious, I see uncertainty now as an adventure or an opportunity. Well, maybe not always, but often enough.
I can live without my ducks being in a row. I no longer feel compelled to straighten them out or whip them back into line.
What is my response, then, when I am asked to pass judgment, or give my opinion on “What would Jesus do?” The Christian community is all too willing to emulate Christ’s righteous anger or His practice of publicly calling others out on their sin.
What seems so difficult for us is extending to others His wild, outrageous grace. It’s easy to pigeonhole and judge. But to love and accept – ah, that’s another thing altogether. To extend and receive transformative grace are the holy things that I can’t do on my own.
And so we each walk our ordained path. It either leads TO grace or away from Him.