Grace

Stephen Robinson (scripture scholar and BYU professor) once taught:

‘Everything you’ll ever need to know about grace, can be learned in the following way: hold a baby in your arms. (Perhaps while the family is out. Perhaps in a chair. Perhaps your own son or daughter.) What do you feel? An absolute love. What has the baby done to deserve your love? Nothing. What would you sacrifice for that baby? Everything.

This is God.

This, Robinson said, is grace. (Robinson, “Believing Christ: Reflections,” Lectures on Grace, BYU Wheatley Institution, http://wheatley.byu.edu/lectures-on-grace/. quoted in Miller, Adam S., Original Grace, 2022)

Having had this experience very recently (holding a precious new baby in my arms), I have reflected on the heart expanding experience of love it is. 

I have come to feel what grace means just a bit more. 

Grace has nothing to do with earning or deserving. 

Grace simply is, because of who God is and because of how He feels about His children. 

This little baby doesn’t yet comprehend what love is or what it is willing to do and to sacrifice. 

She simply knows need and that the need is met. 

We are a lot like that some of the time. 

We live our lives with good given that we don’t even comprehend. 

But as we grow up in God, we can come to see and accept more and more grace offered from He who knows all of our need perfectly and sees all of our potential presently. 

We begin to see that all He offers and invites us to is grace. 

Life and breath are grace. 

Commandments and covenants are grace. 

Answered prayers are grace. 

And so are unanswered prayers. 

Redirection and correction and calls to repentance are grace. 

Growing opportunities are grace. 

Lessons to learn are grace. 

Reminders of what is truly important (to wear, to participate in, to live) are grace. 

Eyes to see goodness are grace. 

All that comes from Him is grace.

Not because of anything we’ve done, but because of who He is and what He knows we truly need to become all He knows we can become. 

Our part is to embrace all the grace He offers, trusting that because it comes from Him it is good. 

And to see grace in all He gives.