GodReflection: Breathing Grace
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4:10
The most enjoyable people I’ve work for—and with—are those who supply a one sentence job description and empower me to produce.
As a follower of the Holy that is exactly the expectation I see that God has for me.
When I accepted His gift, He breathed His grace upon me with the one-line job description: “Go and breathe My grace upon others.” His gift of grace that ran red from a wood cross in 33 A.D. sets my job description for my life on earth.
Here is the great discovery: God tailored my job description to fit the unique way in which He wired me.
Isn’t that the insight from the apostle and elder Peter? Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4:10
So in my case, I steward God’s grace through the gifts He assigned to me as a builder within His Kingdom, as one with an inquiring mind, and as a writer.
I steward God’s grace as I love Him with heart, soul, and mind. I steward God’s grace as I esteem my neighbors—regardless of country of origin—as I esteem myself.
By so doing I steward God’s grace in the forms of kindness, love, patience, and Joy.
My job description is not to steward God’s grace through art, music, being a great people person, or as an orator who can hold an audience with riveted attention. That is not me. I am a different sort of container.
My Job description does not require that I paste the gift of someone else onto my soul and fake grace through a gift that is not mine.
God’s grace-breath flows freely through the gifts He issues His children.
The apostle Paul echoes Peter when he declares to the church in Rome: We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith (Romans 12:6).
I see the idea of God’s breath of grace flows through an individual’s gift of God-wiring implied in Paul’s comment to the Ephesian church when he wrote: But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it (Ephesians 4:7).
God offered to me His breath of grace free of charge. The way He gave is the model for me as a vessel of His grace. Through my job description, “Go and breathe God’s grace upon others,” I am to do so without strings attached.
I offer the grace of kindness with no expectation of kindness in return. I grow in the grace of giving not waiting to see if another will give me anything in return. I love the foreigner without anticipation of reciprocal affection.
I share God’s grace when I seek to understand without having to always convince others of my right point of view.
The only way my job description can be to “Go and breathe God’s grace upon others,” is to truly allow God to breathe His grace into my heart twenty-four hours a day for the entire seven days of each week.
If I would allow God to breathe into my soul around the clock—I suspect that His job description for me would be filled with both excitement and fulfillment.
Stay tuned.
Dr. Gary J. Sorrells
A GodReflection on My Job Description is to Breathe Grace.
God Reflection 