First, how important to me Grace & Truth are.
Funny because Grace & Truth are the two main things that have guided me in how I conduct myself, how I view things and how I relate with people. This has been my relational model.
My life paradigm.
In my MBA class, we were asked to write our personal mission statement. I shared mine:
My life paradigm.
In my MBA class, we were asked to write our personal mission statement. I shared mine:
Live by Grace. Seek the Truth. Build the Kingdom. Teach the Generations.
I am called to live by grace, simply because I am alive by grace. I could have been judged and condemned by God; but instead, He sent Jesus as an appropriation for my sins.
For my failures.
For my mess ups.
For my short comings.
For my pride & arrogance.
For my selfishness.
When one realizes how WE ARE ALL UNDER GRACE, how can one not extend grace to the other? How can you withhold grace from a person God has already extended grace to?
Better yet: How can you not extend grace to another when you (and I'd be at the top of this list) are continually under the grace of God? Not because you (or I) deserve it, but because it is a GIFT. Gifts are gifts. They are given without looking for anything in exchange. The only catch is that the recipient must accept the gift: and in doing so, takes full responsibility for the use, care and development of it.
What right have we to withhold grace from others?
I am called to seek the truth. I value truth. I value honesty. I value the other person that's why I shall speak in truth. I shall relate in truth.
And in the times that I don't know what the truth is, I go directly to the person and inquire of them first.
Without any biases.
Without any judgement.
Without adhering to what "I think is happening"
Without implying anything.
Without agreeing first to what other people say.
Simple rule in life: Don't judge a person without getting to know them first.
Here's another: Even though you have gotten to know them, don't judge them.
Bishop Cesar Punzalan pointed this out very beautifully in one of his preachings. What a person may be doing may seem like something that is so unacceptable to our concept and our understanding, but there are other layers of deeper truth to it that we do not see.
He told this story:
His grandfather had a big thing for fighting cocks. He took care of a good number. Raised them. Competed with them and won. Sold a few as well. But cockfighting is strongly associated with gambling in the Philippines. So when Bishop was a young pastor, he confronted his grandfather and told him that the entire fighting cocks thing was bad. He even revisited episodes in his childhood when his grandfather would make him take care of the roosters, how he'd spend a lot of money on them when it could've been spent on the family et al.
His grandfather asked him to sit down and listen to a family story: When his grandfather was young, he was a local official in their province during the Japanese occupation. Now when the Japanese soldiers arrived at their house, they were declared to be killed. For some reason, the Japanese official leading the unit agreed to have breakfast in their house before killing them. After breakfast, this official went to the back of their house where the fighting cocks were being kept. He saw the quality and breed of the fighting cocks that Bishop Cesar's grandfather was keeping and he praised them repeatedly. The official then decided on this: The Japanese official keeps all of the fighting cocks and the entire family was allowed to leave with their lives. His grandfather ended that Bishop's dad was only a toddler at that time.
Bishop ended his family story with this: Never judge a person by what you see he or she is doing. Unless you are like God, who can read a person's heart, we have no proper capacity or instrumentation to see the bigger picture of what we are currently seeing, or what we believe we are seeing.
If you really think about it, that's basic courtesy to a fellow person. Our Judiciary system states that a person is innocent until proven guilty. But trial by media has always been a nationwide bias. That is a different blog altogether.
God has always related to us in truth. The truth that sets us free from the chains of lies and bitterness that somehow capture our hearts over the years. The truth that, when realized, can bring back to life dead parts of one's self. The truth that, when actualized, changes one's life forever.
Truth should always be used to build up and encourage, to rebuke in love and to enact restoration right away. It should be always wielded in love. Not in anger. Anger clouds the capacity to understand and make an unbiased inference of the situation. No offense meant to emotional thinkers, but this is why despite how hurt, angry or disappointed I initially feel, I turn it off and let logic and rationality framed in scripture and reality take precedence.
Not what I think I see.
Not what I want to see.
Not what I feel about what I see.
But I should see what the reality of truth is.
Anger, when mixed with truth, is a one way speed alley to a fractured and disjointed reality.
I only realized truly how important Grace & Truth are to me because of the second thing I learned:
Not everybody values what you value.
Please don't get me wrong, I don't expect the whole world to succumb to my world paradigm or value system. That's just not going to work or happen. My mistake was hoping that those who are close to me would at least grant me grace and truth in the same way I extend it to them. My assumption was since I naturally treat people that way, and they knew me well, they'd award me with the same courtesy and respect.
But there are times when reality hits and it hits hard.
Let me make this clear though, this isn't some ranticle. This is merely an expression of learning over the past two weeks. Painful, yes, but it doesn't merit the disintegration of one's relational bearing with another. Real friends don't make friends choose. Be it between people, between situations or between themselves.
In light of these eureka moments, I have learned to just be who I am, continue doing what I do and how I treat the people around me. I have decided to still pursue Grace & Truth. I have chosen to continue to extend it to the people around me; but I have learned not to expect it returned to me. That, at the very least, lessens the potentiality of another let down.
Besides, we are all under grace. Who are we not to extend it to others regardless of what's been done to us.
Or what is being done to us.
I pray that may Grace & Truth walk with you the days of your life. May you always be cloaked in the peace of the Lord, knowing that you are loved and accepted for who you are in the eyes of our Maker. May your cup never be empty and your life full to overflowing. May you bring life wherever you go.
Shalom.
-M-