Receiving God's Grace

When the alarm clock goes off on a Monday morning, what’s the first thought that typically comes to your mind?

If you’re like me, then that thought, most Mondays just might begin with the word “Ugh!” “Another Monday.” Have you ever felt that way? If you have, then you know it’s even worse when you wake up on Monday and it’s dark and grey outside, and the sky is cloudy, and the air is cold. On a day like that it’s enough to want to just stay in bed, pull back the covers, and hide from the world. Have you been there before? Me too.

Now, shift gears for a moment and think back the last day you can remember when you woke up, and the first thoughts in your mind, the first thing you said to yourself was “Man, today’s going to be a great day!” Maybe the sun was shining in through the window, the birds were chirping outside, the sky was blue…maybe you’re like a friend of mine, and your automatic coffee maker had dutifully made the coffee and you can already smell it wafting in from the kitchen…and all you can think in the middle of that perfect scene is “Man, today’s going to be a great day!” Wouldn’t it be nice if every day could begin that way?
Well, if you think so, then I’d like to let you in on a secret…ANY day CAN be a great day. It doesn’t matter if the sky is blue or grey, if the sun is shining or buried behind a thick wall of clouds, if the birds are chirping sweetly or there are a flock of crows cawing wildly…any day can be a great day.

Too often, I know I’m guilty of it, when the day doesn’t start the way we wanted, when the air’s too cold, the sky is too grey…you forgot to plug the coffee maker in the night before…we didn’t get enough sleep…when all these things collide to make us wake up on the wrong side of the bed…too often the first thoughts we think or the first words we say…fall into the category of complaints. Before we’ve even pulled back the covers, we’re complaining…
We all complain, some more than others..but when complaining becomes a daily habit…an every morning routine…then pretty soon the things that can ruin a day become smaller and smaller…and it doesn’t take long before the words “Man, today’s going to be a great day” disappear from our vocabulary altogether…THIS DOESN’T HAVE TO HAPPEN…Like I said…any day has the potential for being a great one.

Think about the story that Jesus tells in Matthew 20:1-16. There is a group of people in that story for whom the day is starting to show signs of going south. I’m talking about that 5 pm group who are still standing around.

They may have rolled out of bed saying “Man, today’s going to be a great day!” but then when the clock struck 9, noon, 3, and 5 and they were still standing around, un-hired, they may have begun question their initial assessment…the reason this is turning out to be a bad day is because they know that if they don’t get picked, they don’t work, and if they don’t work, then their family doesn’t eat that day.

Have you ever felt like that? Like a day that had so much potential just sort of ran out of steam? Or took a wrong turn somewhere? Or came to a screeching halt altogether? What did you do when that happened? What are the things you started to think? What did you say? What did you do about it?

The interesting thing to me, about the 5 o’clock group is their strategy. They don’t start complaining: “What a rotten day!” or “How come he got picked over me? Everyone knows I always work hard and he’s a slacker!” Instead of letting the grey clouds get the better of them, instead they seem to say “Let’s wait and see! The day’s not over yet.” At the end of the day, for them it was worth it…they finally get picked, and they receive far more than they ever expected. I’ll bet when the checks were handed out at the end of the day…that 5 o’clock group looked at them and said “Man, I KNEW today was going to be a great day!”

There is word for what those workers received, and it is the key to the secret of every great day…the word is GRACE. Being paid for a full day’s work, when you only showed up at 5 is GRACE…it means the difference between food on the table or empty stomachs. GRACE is the key to our lives, too because it means the difference between whether a day is rotten or good.
The complainers in Jesus story grumble because they worked all day and got the same thing as the ones who showed up late. My guess is, most of us might do the same thing if we found ourselves in their shoes. I think they complain…and most of the time we do too…because we have a hard time recognizing GRACE. Jesus’ story reminds us that GRACE is all around us…it’s as available to you the moment you wake up, before the day has even started, as it is late in the day when you’re exhausted and ready for bed.

The question is, is it ENOUGH for you? Is what God provides enough…or do you find yourself worrying about what others have? Is what God provides enough for today or do you find yourself fearful of what tomorrow might bring? When you look at what God has given you, do you find yourself complaining about what you’re receiving…or not receiving?

Many of you probably know who Randy Pausch is…he’s the Carnegie Mellon Professor, who at the age of 47 was diagnosed with a terminal pancreatic cancer that this past summer took his life. For Randy, that one day at the doctor’s office changed his life forever. With a wife and three small children, no one would blame Randy if he complained…if he said that this wasn’t fair…if he cried out that he didn’t deserve what he had received in this diagnosis. In his book, “The Last Lecture” he says something profound about complaining. He says this: “Complaining doesn’t work as a strategy.” I would agree with him.

Complaining doesn’t work as a strategy…but I believe that Receiving God’s Grace does. When you don’t receive what you had hoped out of a day, a week, or a life…complaining won’t change any bit of it. God’s Grace might.

Take Jesus for example. We’re told that on one particular Thursday night, he had a nice meal with all of his friends, but that later on he wound up spending the rest of that night in a jail cell. Then, Friday morning he woke up and stood trial. He listened as large crowds of people called not for his release, but for his life. Then at noon on Friday he trudged up a hill with the cross on his shoulders…and that afternoon he felt the nails in his hands…then that night, he died.

As far as I know, he never complained about any bit of it. But he did say things like: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Even when the day showed no signs of improving, and only got worse as the hours went by, Jesus spent every minute of it still trusting, hoping, and counting on somehow receiving God’s grace. No matter how you look at it, that Friday for Jesus was not a “good” day.

But then, something happened…something no one could have foreseen or predicted. If you think that the 5 o’clock workers were surprised that day when the checks were handed out, then imagine how surprised Jesus was when Sunday morning rolled around, and he opened his eyes, breathed in and looked around, and saw that the sun outside his tomb was shining and the door was opened. My guess is, he smiled, rolled out of that cold, dark tomb and said to himself “Man, today is going to be a great day!”

Jesus reminds us all that no matter what happens, whether it is morning, noon, or night, God’s grace is always there…sometimes we don’t see it right away, but if we hang around long enough it always shows up. Complaining, though we do it often, is never a strategy that will improve our day or our life…But, waiting on God’s grace just might!