Receiving Grace from Others
Receives grace and forgiveness from other members of the family.
Getting our heart and head straight to receive forgiveness from family and friends prepares us to get to work doing the actual receiving. There might not seem like an awful lot to do here related to the hands-on application of receiving grace from others. The bulk of the action is handled by those offering grace to our kids (ourselves and others in their lives), but learning to receive grace graciously takes practice.
We might have been able to get our kids to the point that they are able to be honest about the sin or situation that they have been caught in. They may have been able to admit wrong, own their actions, and confess the fracture of the trust that may have occurred depending on the situation, but now that challenge is to hear the gracious words of forgiveness with a truly open and repentant heart.
I don’t want to make this out to be a work on their part. That would be anathema to the Gospel and the nature of free grace itself. Yet, if you have ever reached the point with your kids that they get it with regard to their sin, but now have crossed over to beating themselves up over what has taken place, you know the struggle.
The purpose of forgiveness is reconciliation. When you examine Matthew 18 and Jesus’ teaching on a brother (or sister depending on your family) sinning against you, the goal is to restore a prior relationship. Looking specifically at verse 15b we read “If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” We are not in this just for the fun of pointing out the sin of others. Really it is no fun at all to point out the sin of our own children anyway. Who wants to dwell on that?
Having an attitude that allows our children to hear and receive words of forgiveness moves them down the road to reconciliation with us. We are all better able to put the struggle of sin behind us, be that frustrations like a light left on yet again, or a broken window. Now there may be practical consequences that may be necessary, but those are never to interfere with our kids receiving grace. There is no condition to the grace that we give and our kids need to learn how to receive that condition free grace with their own graciousness. No pouting or pity parties are allowed. No need for a performance to prove your sorrow. Yes, authentic and appropriate emotional responses are natural, but staged responses are no substitute.
Some kids are full tilt emotionally in everything that they do. When they are joyful, that joy is all over their faces and all over the place. When they are angry, same deal. When they have been corrected and they might struggle to receive forgiveness, they may emotionally struggle to accept that they are worthy to receive forgiveness. How can anyone think them worthy, considering what they just did? This is where he can be at times. As a parent, this breaks our hearts. We want them to recognize their sin, but also to understand that our love and by extension God’s love is not dependent upon how sorry they are or something that they need to beat themselves up over out of a sense of unworthiness. Truth be told, we are not worthy, but that is alright. We are all in that boat together. None of us are worthy of the grace of God or often the grace we share with one another.
The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6).
We help our children learn to experience the hands-on nature of the receipt of grace when we are able to emulate God’s faithfulness in the face of our faithlessness. The sweet transaction of God’s grace is the exchange of His love for our sin. We extend that sweetness as we set aside our seemingly righteous parental anger and offer just the same steadfast love that God has shown us. In this way, our kids learn what it means to receive grace from others with their own graciousness extended toward themselves.
