Grace Doesn't Rescue You, It Prepares You

​Maybe like me, you grew up imagining grace as the “cleanup crew” - something God sends in after we’ve blown it, a superpower that shows up with a mop, shakes its head, forgives us, and says, “Try again.”

In that view, grace is reactive. It only becomes necessary once we fail. Thankfully, it's an inaccurate view.

Megan Fate Marshman says, "Grace is not just God reacting to your failure, but initiating your future." Which means, grace is baked into our story from the beginning, not rushed in from the sidelines when we fall down.

Our failures don't show up on God's doorstep as a mess he's suddenly tasked to deal with, grace says God has already accounted for those failures and chooses daily to keep calling us forward in spite of them.

What a gift. If grace is already here, we don't have to live in fear of our next mistake. So many of us live with the anxiety that our next mistake will count us out, disqualify us.

Grace says failure is not a cliff we fall off of, but part of the terrain God already factored into our path. Grace says failure isn't the end of our calling, but part of the path to who God is calling us to become.

We are not walking a life littered with landmines ready to unexpectedly blow up our existence, but rather, with grace we are walking with a holy guide that always and forever knows the way though them. Before, during, and after the inevitable explosions.

Too often we imagine God saying, “Come back when you’re better.”

But grace says:

I am here in the confusion.

I am here in the relapse.

I am here in the numbness.

I am here in the unfinished story.

Grace doesn’t stand at the end of the road waving you home, grace walks the road with you.

Maybe you've made mistakes recently. Maybe you feel like your life is failing. Maybe you feel like you are in a place that is beyond any return. Maybe you feel like there is no way you can possibly earn the favor you long for.

Please be encouraged, grace says you already HAVE that favor.

Grace says there is more to your story than this moment, and it is grace that always has been, is, and forever will be bringing it to life. We don't have to wait on the cleanup crew to clear a way, grace cleared the way before we got here.

So go....

Go without fear of screwing it up; grace is right beside you.