“Grace requires nothing out of me.”
This may just be my favorite line ever in a song (Album: Atlas, Song: One). At the same time, it’s the most challenging line for me.
After all, I’m a person who requires a lot of myself (and ashamedly others as well). I always want to solve the problem, get the work done… and I loathe mistakes (though I make a great deal of them). It’s probably why I read over every post I make multiple times before sending it out into the world. No typos please!
Yesterday, after a week of struggling to figure out the perfect prayer place to do the Spiritual Exercises retreat, I gave up. Not on the Exercises, but on the place. I randomly got up from my desk, took my phone that had the prayer materials on it, and just started walking. I walked the length of the perimeter of my school as I considered the questions offered to me. Luckily, it was a nice, cool day and the sidewalks were quiet at that moment.
The primary question for the day’s exercise was: “What creates resistance between me and God?” It didn’t take long before this song by @sleepingatlast popped into my head. I think my feet even began to pound against the concrete in time with the music playing in my head as I recalled each line.
It’s a song based on the enneagram type 1. It’s a song that pretty accurately describes my desires and my struggle to fulfill those all by myself. Every line of this song gets to me, but none other than the reminder that I don’t have to earn God’s grace. If I fail or succeed, if I keeping moving or stop, if I find the perfect prayer place or I don’t – grace will still be showered in abundance on me.
It reminds me that God’s love has no checklist.
God’s grade book is empty.
God’s scorecard doesn’t exist.
God simply loves us. Just as we are.
And because of that love, God offers us the world.
