Grace is when you finally stop keeping score and when you realize that God never was, that His game is a different one entirely.

These are Shauna Niequist’s words. She’s an author who’s wit, honesty, courage and writing style intrigue me. I read one of her books more than a year ago but then randomly picked it up this week, flipped through the pages, and stopped on this quote. I really appreciate her words, and if we knew each other through more than just twitter, I think we’d be friends.

These past few months have been all about grace. Have I ever fully understood it? I honestly don’t believe so. Grace isn’t a new idea at all, but it is a big theme in my life right now. It has been for awhile I think, I just wasn’t paying attention. But like anything, once you start looking for something, you find it, or you find the lack of it, everywhere you look.

I think I’m just coming around to the realization that I don’t really want to need grace. I don’t really trust that people will show me grace. I don’t show it to myself well, and when I’m doing poorly, I don’t show it to anyone else well, either.

I’ve chosen to live life grace-less. I’ve chosen to live in a way so that everything is an opportunity to achieve or fail. It’s exhausting to live like that, where everything’s a performance, and you can’t trust the people in your life to give you a break or to give you a second chance or to give you what you really are longing for, which is grace.

If only I would learn.

If only I would learn to rest my entire case on the work Jesus Christ did on the cross.

If only I were so gripped by the magnificense and boundless generosity of God’s grace.

If only I would respond out of gratitude rather than out of a sense of duty.

These are my thoughts. Praise God that the story doesn’t end here. These days, I’m on the lookout for grace, and I’m especially on the lookout for ways that I withhold grace from myself and from other people.

Love came down and rescued me. To my gracious God, clean me. To you I give all my thanks and praise.

Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. – Romans 4:8