We live in a world of human performance. Our success comes from our actions. All sorts of effort goes into determining how different actions could produce better results.
There is a dark side to performance-based approaches. There is intense pressure to perform and succeed. Many of us experience boatloads of anxiety in our efforts toward success, and strong guilt when those efforts fail. When everything stands or falls on our performance, what do we do after what we do doesn’t work?
I believe the genius or unique contribution of Christianity is grace. Grace emphasizes God’s action, his performance. This is a completely different framework than most religions and approaches to life. These are additional topics for another day, but a framework of grace involves working with concepts such as sin, guilt, forgiveness, and redemption.
Grace and its related concepts can feel very foreign and truly are foreign in a performance-based culture. So whatever the grace journey is, it will take us off the beaten path in uncomfortable and strange and hopefully also the best possible ways.
The basis of a grace perspective is in the character and action of God. It will ultimately stand or fall on who God is. So the fundamental question in all matters of grace will continue to be whether God is truly good and reliable in his goodness. The critical question is what God’s heart is and whether we can trust him to be good and also to be good toward us.
Reflection Questions
- Are there ways you see human performance as a key component of your world? Can you see some positive and negative aspects?
- What does grace mean to you? Is there a person or situation from your experience that you think of?
- Do you feel tension between grace and performance? Can you identify aspects of this topic that you want to explore or work on?