Do you love to receive gifts? Anytime? Any kind? From any person? If it’s a gift we want or need, we are thankful and excited. But if it’s a gift we feel we don’t really need or really want, we find it harder to receive. We smile, but inside we may feel we’re above this kind of thing.  

The grace of God is his gift to us, his unmerited favor towards us. By it we are saved, forgiven, transformed, strengthened, challenged, trained, formed.  

When we are weak, hurt, confused; when we are strong, excited, confident, we ask and receive it wholeheartedly. We know we need it. We know we need it to accomplish God’s will. But grace isn’t always the gift that you want. Sometimes it’s the gift that you don’t want.  

Not every time God gives grace do we receive it eagerly. Often we’re reluctant, not because we don’t appreciate his grace, but because we don’t appreciate why he’s giving it to us.  

We maybe don’t want to go where he wants us to go. But it’s still grace to be sent. We maybe don’t want to do what he wants us to do. But it’s still grace to be called. We maybe don’t want to be who he’s called us to be. But it’s still grace to be chosen. 

Conviction and repentance are gifts of grace, but often gifts we’d rather not receive. “Is this really sin? Is it really that big of a deal?” Discipline and correction are gifts of grace, but often gifts we’d rather not receive. “I was wrong? Didn’t they overreact?”  

We can mistakenly believe that when we do fail or disobey or wander, that we’ll completely see it that way and fully want to follow because “I love Jesus”. That may be true. We do love Jesus. But there are still plenty of moments where “not my will but yours be done” is something like a child saying to his father, “Fine. Whatever. I’ll do it.” Reluctant disciples we are. 

Yet, it is ultimately not our love for Jesus that changes us, but his love for us. So in his love his grace or favor towards us both draws and shocks our heart, both captures and offends our heart. But it comes either way and, overtime, our reluctance turns into adoration. 

Opposition deepens friendship, is friendship. Two friends who never oppose each other or challenge each other or disagree with each other or call each other out, know little of what it means to be friends. As iron sharpens iron, so grace sharpens a man when it opposes him or argues with him. But in so doing a heart is sharpened in understanding, in wisdom, in love, in maturity, in humility. To be opposed by grace is a great gift. 

Many children (and adults) are picky eaters. Growing up they are made to eat what they don’t like. But imagine if I say to my younger children, “Not only will you eat that, but you will like it”. Well, I can’t make them like the food, though I can tell them to eat the food. Yet, what they don’t know is that their present obedience will enable their taste palate to grow, so that in the future they may be able to experience and enjoy new foods they otherwise never would have known, if I give them the grace of food they dislike. 

There is no limit to the power of God’s grace. So when God gives us the grace of what we don’t want, we remember that we don’t have to like it, but we also remember that in receiving it, it will grow our heart and its capacity to enjoy him and his unfolding blessings, riches, and “pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).