Identity.

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." - 1 Peter 2:9

Ask me how I identified myself in high school and I would have told you the following: smart, funny, loving, a good friend, and a fairly decent daughter. Oh, and a Christian.

Ask me that now and with full confidence I can tell you that I am a child of the one true King who is daily trying to please my Creator. I fail more often than I’d like to admit, but despite all my letdowns, I am still loved and sought after by my perfect Father.

Bit of a difference in my responses. The reason for the change in my answer is simple: I finally accepted grace.

I struggled with grace for a long time, and I know I’m not the only one. The biggest problem is that I didn’t understand what grace was in the first place. In my mind, grace and mercy were the same thing to me. I was always so confused by this until someone finally explained it me:

“Imagine that you are a kid without a license. One night, you decide to take your parent’s car for a joy ride. As you begin to back out of your driveway, you lose control of the car and end up hitting your neighbor’s fence. There are now three ways your offense can be dealt with. The first is your neighbor’s calling the authorities and you are fined. This is justice. The second is that your neighbor’s don’t press charges, but they do make you pay for a new fence. This is mercy. The final way this situation can be handled is your neighbor’s forgive and don’t ask you to do anything for them. This is grace.”

Put into these words, I finally understood grace. But then, I was faced with the challenge of accepting God’s grace that was given to me. There are many things I have done in my past that I am not proud of, and I know there will be things in my future that I will fail at. Despite all those things, God, being rich in love, has given me freedom.

My identity does not belong in my sinful self. God does not want me to place my life in sin, but in Him instead. His will for my life is far better than anything I could ever imagine for myself. I have lived my life both according to my sin and according to God’s will, and I choose God. Nothing will ever compare to the comfort of resting in God’s grace. To not have to live my life wallowing in self-pity day after day after day is indescribable.

I’ve been learning more and more about God’s grace these past few weeks. What I’ve discovered has changed my world. Placing my identity in Christ is one of the scariest decisions I have ever made, but it’s also been the most rewarding. All my life I’ve said that I will follow Christ wherever He wanted me to go, but when I said them, they were in vain. Just empty words that I didn’t give a second thought about. Now, when I do say those words, I say them carefully and slowly, because I understand the weight of them.

Grace is a weird concept to grasp. Honestly, I still don’t understand all of it, and I probably never will. But for now, I’m going to daily accept it and remind myself that no matter what I do, good or bad, God is still good and loving to me. And at the end of the day, that’s all I really need.

(This is a really good song called Grace Alone. Just to let you know.)