The great gift of grace

One of the few things I vaguely remember from my Psych 101 class in college is the concept of attribution — it’s a term that applies to how we explain the causes of people’s actions and events in our lives. The example I remember the professor using is that when someone does something we don’t like in traffic, we immediately think “What a jerk”. Based on that action and our belief that only a jerk would do that while driving, we decide that guy is a jerk — that’s attribution.

The problem here is pretty obvious: We’re drawing a conclusion based on very, very limited information. He could have been driving someone to the hospital. He could have been unemployed for months and was running late for the first job interview he had gotten in weeks. Who knows? Of course, it’s true that the guy could be a grade-A jerk in all his affairs, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re cognizant of the fact that our ire is really directed at the action, not the person — because we don’t know the person at all.

Instead of reacting with “what a jerk”, maybe we can show the person some grace. Maybe we can remember the times we’ve inadvertently (or even intentionally) done something stupid while driving, or maybe we can just admit that in the larger scheme of our day, what the person did isn’t a big deal. In short, we can show the person some grace.

Grace is a great word. God’s grace is boundless. In short, he knows everything about us … and he loves us anyway. The challenge for me, and for all Christians, is to live a grace-filled life. What are the two greatest commandments? First, love God. Second, love others. Loving others often means giving them grace, even if I may not feel like they deserve it. “Love others” is not some code for “love only the people who are nice to you, and who you come across when you’re in a good mood, and who you think are respectable.” “Love others” means “love all others”.

Now, how we love someone in a Christlike way — especially if the person isn’t a Christian — is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. If someone is hungry, handing them a card with an inspiring Bible verse on it may be a nice gesture, but that’s not really what they need at that moment. That’s a very simple example, and most interactions we have with people are much more complex, but my point is that it takes some discernment to give people grace where they are, not where we think they should be or where we can stay in our comfort zone while being “nice”.

I suspect many people are turned off from Christianity because somewhere along the way, they met a Christian who didn’t show them the right grace at the right time. As one of my old pastors liked to say, “You may be the only ‘Jesus’ some people ever see.”

So that’s our challenge. Love others. Show grace. It sounds so simple, but in our human frailty, it’s a lot easier said than done. I hope that as we head into another week, we can be intentional about sharing grace … with everyone.