“What is grace? Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable. It is being loved when you are the opposite of loveable…Grace is a love that has nothing to do with you, the beloved. It has everything & only to do with the lover. Grace is irrational in the sense that it has nothing to do with weights & measures. It has nothing to do with my intrinsic qualities or so-called “gifts” (whatever they may be). It reflects a decision on the part of the giver, the one who loves, in relation to the receiver, the one who is loved, that negates any qualifications the receiver may personally hold…
Grace is one-way love. The one-way love of grace is the essence of any lasting transformation that takes place in human experience… It is true in life that grace, one-way love, has the power to turn despair into hope. It is almost always some form of grace, some outside source of unexpected and unhoped for compassion and kindness, that creates the change from discouragement & despair to endurance & perseverance… One-way love lifts up. One way love cures. One-way love transforms. It is the change agent of life…”
Paul F. M. Zahl, Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life
No comments:
Post a Comment