"...As Long As We Don't Get What We Deserve."

My brother and I like to share quotes with one another, and one of our favorites is, "we may not always get what we want, just as long as we don't get what we deserve."

It's a good reminder and yet one I find myself kicking against. 

In C.S. Lewis' book, The Great Divorce, Lewis imagines a circumstance in which citizens of hell can take bus tours of heaven and, if they so choose, may stay there. What his characters discover is that there is an unfairness in God's mercy that they cannot accept, even when it would do them good.

Too often, I find myself having that same struggle. As one of the visitors in Lewis' book shouts, "I only want my rights. I'm not asking for anybody's bleeding charity." I begin  to think that I'm not that bad and that, if I did get what I deserve, it wouldn't be that bad either.

But it would be. If I take time to really examine myself, my thoughts, my actions, my life, I would be lost without the Bleeding Charity of Christ. It's why grace will, for me, always trump karma, because karma will always make me a bug, only grace can make me a man.

I know the grace of Christ is often viewed by outsiders (and, too often, by insiders) as simply being let off the hook to behave in all sorts of horrible ways, but that misunderstands the grace of God. God's grace allows me chance after chance to be less like my worst self and more like my best, it puts to death my old life and gives me a new one. 

And that is more than I deserve. It is more than I can ever earn or repay and that fact doesn't compel me to work less, but to work more. To strive to live a life worthy of my calling instead of doing only that which will get me my rights. It allows me to give up my self along with my sin and to be someone better than I could ever be. 

One of the angels in Lewis' book declares, "Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought."

But I keep trying to pay for what I cannot afford instead of living gratefully for what I've been given.

And, for that, I repent.