Crisis Grace

When a crisis arises, most people don’t hesitate to help anyone who needs it. But if the crisis lasts beyond the initial shock, then fear and frustration can trample courage and kindness coping with it.

This particular crisis is an attack against part of the fabric of God’s creation, the interdependence of systems. From protons to people to planets, we’re made to need others in our life systems.

And ours aren’t just physical, they’re emotional and spiritual. When you’ve had your face slapped (or rather, your mask), you feel it deeply, especially if you were just trying to strengthen others by being the person God says you are.

So what do you do when your face is still stinging from being cheated, betrayed, rejected, mocked, lied to, lied about, and hated? Mask jokes aside, you show them a face that’s been in God’s presence. “Turning the other cheek” isn’t giving someone power to hurt you again. Just the opposite. It’s living so resolutely in the hope, peace, joy, and healing God’s given you, there’s nothing missing or broken in you to take advantage of.

It’s standing in the unending outpouring of God’s preposterous love, so it can transform the bitter and broken hearts of those who’ve been barely surviving without it.

It’s daily demonstrating the grace he’s given you, so powerfully no one is able to diminish, manipulate, or change who you are—one of the most important threads of life in the fabric of creation.

“But the Lord responded, ‘My grace will always be more than enough for everything you face. In fact, my power finds its fullest expression through your weakness’” (2 Cor. 12:9a).