We are working with a client today for whom we did some work last year. When we worked for them last year, it came at a time when we were extraordinarily busy with other clients.
This client had some real issues with our software and some of those issues were beyond our control and so we never fixed them. I am a nice man, but if I had been in their shoes, I would not have been nearly as nice as they treated us. They were always gracious and patient and are even a referenceable client, even though, by all rights, they really shouldn’t be.
When this project came up for us to do some more work for them, I told my developer about our history with them. I told her, “I would like to be so good to them and so responsive so as to earn the way they’ve treated us in the past.”
Afterwards, I reflected on this and realized that this is really what grace is all about. God‘s salvation is like a line of credit that has been extended to us for free and we never have to pay back. We are free to draw on it as needed to deal with whatever we need through life with no strings attached.
Christian maturity though, is that one day, maybe, we’ll become the person God wanted us to be when he extended his grace to us in the first place, in a way, earning grace.
It also occurs to me that this is why we are supposed to do unto others as you would have them do to you. We extend God’s grace to others in the hope that they will one day live up to the gift that’s been given to all of us.
God help me to be gracious and peaceful so that I may also be a good example of your amazing grace.