students of jesus

Last week I heard myself saying about a certain situation, “I think the grace is running out on this thing.” Did I hear what I was saying?

“This thing” had been going on for more than a year. The details are not important: I can tell you a year is a long time. But the fact was I was simply tired. I had run out of patience. And without pausing to think about it, I had slapped a religious label on my feelings—the very kind of religious label that allowed me to apply “God’s will” to my lack of patience.

How quick we are to suppose God sees things the same way we do! And perhaps the danger is greatest among those who’ve walked with God long enough to learn a few of his ways.

God’s grace has taught me plenty: I’ve walked with God enough years to have learned the “correct responses” to many situations, and I’ve ordered my life around the priorities of the Kingdom enough to tilt in the direction of righteousness, peace, and joy. I’ve tapped into wellsprings of life flowing from the Spirit and his inspired words.

An image: walking with God is a bit like digging a well. We go deep and discover the sweet wellspring of the waters of grace. The surprise in this metaphor is that our hearts are the well. We dig down below our self-will and discover the sweet source of life available to every student of Jesus. We’ve opened up a well of grace. But even a good well needs maintaining. It can go dry or go bad.

But does grace really ever run out? Actually, yes: if we’re talking about the well of grace in our own hearts. The well of grace yields pure water, but in some seasons we must dig a deeper. More accurately, God’s grace hasn’t run out at all; we must tend the well. “Watch over your heart with all diligence,” say the Proverbs, “For from it flow the springs of life.”

No one who digs a well takes the water for granted—in the first year. Still, through countless trips to draw the water we need, we might take the flow for granted. We forget what first opened the spring. Jesus himself cautioned a faithful and persevering church to remember their beginnings, and to do the deeds they had first done (Revelation 2:2-5). He called them to repent, which means to rethink their way of life. Why would a believer need to rethink the way of life?

I can tell you personally: the goodness of God flows so surely we begin to think of his grace as our own possession rather than his daily gift, and when we begin to mistake his supply as our own strength, we find ourselves making foolish statements about grace coming to an end. We might be tempted to think that because we drank deeply of his grace we are somehow the suppliers of his mercy. In the everyday challenges of life we might just presume the well will flow forever, even while we fill it with the debris of our bitterness, envy, or self. Worse still: we might poison the well and yet draw the waters.

The Spirit supplies water without limit. Still, the very practices that first brought us to the well of grace must continue if it would remain pure. Our thirst, our humility, and our repentance are the maintenance of our hearts. From his hand grace abounds forever, yet our hands must tend the well.