Bitterness
“See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled” (Hebrews 12:15). One enemy of grace is bitterness. The wounded heart draws inward and avoids even grace itself. In my bitter pain, I want to be alone. But this aloneness is an illusion. What’s worse is this passage from Hebrews warns us that apart from the grace of God, our bitterness will seep into those around us. My bitterness can defile others. We need grace to endure suffering, even in the everyday slights of life. If we refuse grace, we could possibly defile many. All the while we think we are suffering in silence and solitude, unaware that when one member of the body suffers, the whole body is in pain.
Scarcity
“Scarcity” is not a very good word to describe this enemy of grace, except that I can think of no other. This second opponent of grace is my fear that grace is a zero-sum game, that grace comes prepackaged in fixed amounts. I can be tempted to think that there’s not enough grace to go around. My mind has yet to inform my heart that “his mercy endures forever.” God’s grace comes in limitless supply, but I am the frightened sparrow who thinks his small breaths will consume all the air in the sky. This misconception causes me to think that whatever grace I find I must keep for myself. Who knows where I’ll find more? Yet if the Father clothes the flowers of the field and feeds the birds of the air, how much more will he provide the life-giving freedom of grace?
The Bible tells us we are each given a stewardship of grace (1 Peter 4:10). Will we be like the man who foolishly held his one talent and chose not to multiply it, or will we be among those who multiply God’s gift of grace? Will we keep God’s grace to ourselves or extend God’s grace to a desperate world? Here is how the supply of heaven works: When I share the grace I’ve received, I discover the Source of all grace, who gives the Spirit without limit. Scarcity has no place in God’s kingdom.
Pride
Four times—in four different places—Scripture teaches us, “God resists the proud but give grace to the humble.” (Four times!) Among the enemies of grace, human pride hides deepest in our souls. Pride has a thousand faces but always the same dreary aim: to make more of ourselves and less of God. Grace exposes our desire to sit on the throne of our own vainglorious private kingdom. Pride is the leaven of the Pharisees. Pride is an enemy of grace—you can’t give grace to people you look down upon; you can only give them pity.
Sometimes pride masquerades as false humility. False humility is our attempt to fool God. We utter modest things about ourselves we do not believe. The problem with false humility is that it’s false. False humility is the self-abasement we want others to reject, thus affirming our talent and skill. C.S. Lewis helps us guard against false humility: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself: it is not thinking of yourself at all.”
God loves humility. Is it any surprise that his grace flourishes among the humble. Author Philip Yancey reminds us that “grace, like water, flows to the lowest part.” Pride cannot see beyond itself. Pride whispers that if we must accept grace, then we should have it all. Pride is a miser that hoards the grace of God—as if our sin were so great we could consume heaven’s full supply of grace, when in fact our sins are common to all mankind. Pride causes us to see grace as a zero-sum game—as if God’s kindness to others means less grace for us. But grace is not of this world. Pride harms us deeply; grace heals us utterly. Is it any wonder God resists the proud?
Return to Grace
Imagine this: You’re in the garden, pulling whatever weeds catch your eye, whichever ones will yield and give way, root and all. With your head down and the sun on your back, you don’t even notice the gentle bead of sweat that blooms across your forehead as you work. Then comes a small breeze that brings a soft coolness upon your moist skin. You look up. You see nothing. Renewed and unaware, you return to the task. The returning is grace.
Grace is the breeze that cools. Grace is what only God can do in the midst of your labors. Grace is the whispered word of peace that breathes life into our effort and makes it the work of God. Grace is the calm instead of the storm. Grace comes again and again. It comes so often we think of it as grace returning, but in fact it never left. What comes again and again is our return to grace.
Grace is the foundation of God’s work in us, the firm footing from which we can reach and stretch and work and do, the still point that enables any effort, which no effort can improve or change. When the Psalmist urged us, “Be still and know that I am God,” he did not mean that all our labors would cease, but rather he wanted to remind us that any effort separated from grace is vain effort indeed.
A return to grace is like a return to breathing: Grace breathes life in us, a life that we so often take for granted. A return to grace does not mean grace had ever left us at all, only that we become awake to it again. Grace is the atmosphere of our life with God. Like the atmosphere, it surrounds all creation. Each moment we breathe, we breathe deep of grace. Each moment it passes through us, unnoticed. Our great need is to breathe deep of God’s inexhaustible gift. We would cease to exist without grace. You’re already breathing. You’re going to breathe whether you choose to or not. But sometimes we need simply to stop and take one deep breath of grace. Or two. Or three. Before we sing God’s song, we must fill our lungs with grace.
