Wednesday, April 18

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Romans 5:1-2

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

A number of years ago I came across a book entitled, “Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys” that was on the New York Times best seller list. Being the father of boys, I thought it sounded like a book I should read, so I did. The author basically explained that our culture tends to deny boys what he called “emotional literacy”, which has been limiting their ability to understand and express a full range of their own emotions.

At some point soon after reading the book I was driving one of my sons – who was about 10 years old at the time – to a baseball game. Instead of coaching him about how he should play in the game by saying something extremely helpful like, “Try to throw strikes when you are pitching,” which I usually did, I decided to ask him about his emotional life. I said, “Hey, what do you feel when we are on the way to a game like this?”

He thought for a moment and then surprised me with the range of his self-awareness. He said, “I’m excited to play under the lights for the first time; I’m nervous about pitching; and I’m afraid that I might strike out.”

Excited. Nervous. Afraid.

And for that one day, at least, I tried to make it OK for him to feel all those things at once.

But later I wondered how often I had actually discouraged or prevented him from sharing those feelings with me, or from even being aware that he carried those emotions in his heart?

Notice what Paul writes in Romans 5:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

What does Paul mean by the phrase, “this grace in which we now stand”? What does it mean to stand in grace?

It occurs to me that to “stand” somewhere is to remain in one place. There is no running, no hurrying, no striving, no earning. There is just standing. To stand somewhere without movement or anxiety or effort seems to indicate that one is standing in an extraordinarily safe place. A good place. A place where one is accepted and loved without needing to hide or run or prove anything.

We can stand in grace before God because we are now safe with him. Because he has offered his grace to us in Jesus Christ, we have peace with him – and are therefore safe in his presence. And because we are safe we can bring all of ourselves, good and bad, joy and sorrow, anger and pain, to him without fear of judgment. And, in fact, coming to God with all our emotions is a form of prayer. The Psalms are full of this kind of honest and emotion-filled prayer.

But how about our homes? How about our central relationships? Are they places of peace and safety? Are they places of grace? Can our children come to us with real emotion, real pain, real questions, real doubts and trust that they will be heard, accepted and loved?

Ask God to help make your home a place of safety and grace for all.

Pastor Brian Coffey