Article February 10, 2020 Issue

The grace we’ve all been given

Mark Raffles

When you hear the word grace, what comes to thought? The way a dancer glides across the stage? The short prayer before a meal? A title for various high-ranking people?

The typical definitions of grace do include those familiar senses of the word. Yet one dictionary I looked in also includes this: “Divine love and protection freely bestowed on mankind” (The American Heritage Desk Dictionary). Certainly, we hear about this understanding of God’s grace in religious and faith-based circles. And this last definition gets to the heart of what grace truly is and how it translates into our daily experience.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he wrote, “God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work” (II Corinthians 9:8). Paul’s promise is that we are not given a limited amount of grace, but abundant grace—grace that provides all that we need to prosper and do good work.

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