God Freely Gives

We live in a world that's so full of hidden messages, hidden meanings, and hidden motivations that it's hard for us to trust anything that comes that our way. Even the things that we think we've earned, we worry about losing...or we worry about some secret requirement popping up that we haven't met, some fine print that takes it away from us. 

Most of us have had the experience of being excluded at least once in our lives, whether by family, friends, opportunities, employment, or any number of things, and the sting of rejection sticks with us. That's why we're always looking for that thing that makes whatever goodness or promise or hope we might risk to hold onto be actually for "everyone but you." 

And indeed, there's enough fine print in this world to justify our anxiety. 

But then, that's the nature of law. 

That's the nature of existence when it has rules. Codified rules. Lists of do's and don'ts. Exceptions and exclusions and inclusions and tight definitions and loopholes and not those loopholes and different rules for different players. Things like economy and agency and access and all the stuff that makes one person "in" and another person "out." 

In a world that's drawn lines, it's very easy to simply say that we must stay within them. One toe hair on the line and you're out. 

That's what makes it so hard, though, for us to accept the blessings and goodness that God pours into our lives. 

See, we do the same thing with God that we do with the world - we keep looking for the fine print. We've drawn up a contract, and we keep looking for the tiniest ways that we've broken it, keep looking for our exclusion. We're so afraid to believe that we might be "in" - that we might be loved, that we might be forgiven, that we might be valued - that we spend so much of our lives, even our lives of faith, convinced we must be "out," even if we don't know it yet. 

Paul reminds us it's not like that. Not with God. God's blessings, God's promises are freely given, Paul says (Galatians 3:18). They aren't like the law. They aren't like a contract. They aren't tit-for-tat or black and white or inside the lines and outside of them. 

God takes grace and scribbles all over the page until the lines are obscured and all that's left is the beautiful image of love. 

All we have to do is accept it. Embrace it. Believe in it. 

...trust it. 

Which, in a world like this one in which every single one of us has known the pain of exclusion at some point, is easier said than done. 

But it is so, so wonderful if we can even come close.