Tag Archives: grace

Gift of grace

This Christmas, I thought to just repeat to all of us what the gift of grace from God is. Christianity is all about this gift of grace from God, through Christ being born as man to die for our sins. And what this grace means is not that we have to be good in order to earn our place in heaven. Rather, it is that Christ have been that good for us such that we already have a place in heaven, so that we can be good as a response to that. We will never earn our place with the goodness that we can have or do.

It was never the point for us to earn our place with our goodness. But this is what we are constantly fed by the world. And Christianity is this safe spot where we learn that we don’t. Even as Christian myself, I need this reminder. And that’s why this Christmas I’m writing it again, in a different way. To tell all of us that we achieve our place in heaven not by our own goodness. But the goodness of God through Christ, who died for us. This is grace.

And that is what Christmas is about. Christ born for you and I. Grace given to us. Freely. What a joy to be able to receive it.

Clumsy versus poise

Grace, elegance, poise, all somehow points to some kind of balance, or equilibrium whereas clumsiness implies a degree of imbalance, tension at play which can result in awkwardness.

In many things, we strive for the beauty that poise brings but in order to get there, we often have to go through the awkwardness and tension. It doesn’t mean things are going wrong, but the journey to an equilibrium is only possible along the lines of disequilibrium. It is a matter of whether circumstances naturally guides the state of affairs towards the equilibrium or that somehow other forces needs to be at work to enable it.

You don’t necessarily get to glide towards poise; and along the way, there’s going to be a lot of difficulties. The experts are able to make it look easy because they have been in that state of clumsiness for far longer, far more than you have been. If you’re not able to get through the awkwardness, there’s no way you’d be able to find your way to grace. Others have it easy not by going through more ease, but through more difficulty.