Words.
There are certain ones when read or heard that do something to our insides. Just one word can stir up positive or negative vibes. Okay, try this word…
Chores.
Ugh. Just saying the word feels like a chore. Like we just took out the trash or something. We’ve all been there right? We are on the couch watching a movie or playing a video game or in the middle of some kind of beautiful brainless pastime when all of a sudden we hear the word…
Chores.
And we immediately feel really tired and suddenly think of every excuse in the book. Growing up, my chores consisted of cleaning the gutters and mowing the grass and painting the fence and feeding the horses and taking out the trash. Initially, my parents gave me a list of chores without benefits, expecting me to do it because ‘they said so’ and because I loved them. But they quickly realized those two reasons were not enough to get me off the couch.
And then? Money. Cold hard cash.
A switch was flipped. Overnight, we had the cleanest gutters in the county. And, at age 12, I had one thing on my mind…
Licorice. And lots of it. So I started saving my quarters so I could splurge on this sweet nectar from God. After a few months of hard work and sweat and scrapes and bruises and inhaling paint fumes, I was ready to go see Farmer Dale at the local candy store and claim my licorice.
With my fingers outstretched and my eyes as big as my appetite, I shoved all my hard-earned quarters across the counter to Farmer Dale. And I announced loudly so the whole store could hear, “I’ll take fifteen root beer, twenty strawberry, thirty chocolate, fifteen watermelon, and twenty-five cherry!” And Farmer Dale proceeded to verify my math. He counted every quarter while I stood there licking my chops and beaming like, well, a little kid in a candy store.
“It’s not quite enough son.”
”Not enough?” I asked. ”Not enough,” Farmer Dale repeated. I reached into my pockets hoping for a miracle. But nothing. Fresh out of quarters. With my tail between my legs, I walked out of the store with much less licorice than I had hoped for…
A couple weeks later it was the fourth of July and so I went with my family to our town’s parade. And there he was riding a tractor. Farmer Dale. All the other kids were going crazy and I didn’t understand why. And then I knew…
Farmer Dale was making it rain like God did with Noah and the flood. Hundreds. Hundreds. Bags and bags and bags and bags of licorice falling from the sky like parachutes at Normandy. But I just stood there. I couldn’t move. Kids were pushing me out of the way and diving headfirst for the licorice. My brother, who hadn’t done any chores, suddenly had legs and arms that worked. I stared at Farmer Dale in disbelief. ”It’s just not fair,” I thought. I couldn’t accept for free what I had worked so hard to earn…
Maybe God is like Farmer Dale. Parading around and making it rain. Maybe God hands out grace like He would hand out candy. Generously and recklessly and freely God offers us endless grace and unconditional love. At great cost to him. At no cost to us. It’s available to anyone at anytime anywhere.
Grace does not excuse sin. It treasures the sinner. True grace is shocking and scandalous. It is unmerited, undeserved, and unfair. It costs nothing to the recipient and everything to the giver. It is free only because the giver himself bore the cost. Grace is not fair—that’s the hardest thing about it.
We all stand on the side of the road with a choice. To accept it or reject it. To embrace it or disgrace it. To hug it or slug it. To kiss it or diss it. There’s an endless supply of licorice, wrapped up with a bow on it and it says, “To you…Love God.”
At the end of our lives some of us will spread out our fingers and shove all of our quarters across the counter to God and expect him to give us what we earned with all our talents and abilities and hard work. But He will say to us, “Not quite enough son.”
But in Jesus we have more than enough. In Jesus the price has already been paid. In Jesus we have access to a never-ending supply of grace. In Jesus all the chores have been done for us.
So may we follow Jesus just because ‘He said so’ and because we love Him.
And may we start handing out grace like candy at a parade.