Showing Love and Extending Grace When Times are Rough
How would Jesus love?
The phrase “What Would Jesus Do” was popular both in the late 1800’s and in the 1990’s when the acronym WWJD became popular. I find that I am helped more by asking myself, “How would Jesus Love?” Jesus would extend grace.
Setting my heart and mind on Jesus.
I struggle with both chronic pain and depression. I needed to stop working this year because of medical issues. I know more than my share of people who have died in the pandemic. I found myself focusing on myself and my own needs instead of looking up from myself to Jesus. I need to set my heart and mind on Jesus.
Colossians 3: 1-4
1Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
I believe that if I set my heart and mind on Jesus, he will give me grace to extend to others.
Again, how would Jesus love?
We know how Jesus loved. Jesus served others. Jesus forgave. Jesus had compassion on the people. Jesus wept. He loved his Father by obeying his Father.
Philippians 2: 3-8
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
My motto for 2022: “Extend Grace”
I chose the motto “Extend Grace”, not because I find it easy, but because I don’t. I want to love like Jesus. I want to serve others. I want to let go of grudges. I want to see things from other’s perspective. I want to extend grace.
Ways to extend grace
These are the things I will try to do to extend grace and love like Jesus loves:
- I will think of others before myself. I will think of their needs and step up to provide for their needs. I will extend grace.
- When things go wrong or not my way, I will not hold it against the other person. I will try to see the situation from their perspective. I will extend grace.
- I will let go of grudges that I’ve held and do acts of kindness for those who have hurt me. I will extend grace.
- I will have patience in lines and say kind words to servers and health care workers and all the others that must make us wait. I will extend grace.
- I will think about people who behave poorly and consider how an act of kindness might affect their life. I will extend grace.
- When someone else is impatient or unkind with me, and says or does something hurtful, I will not respond in kind. If I am unable in the moment to respond with an appropriate kind word in response, I will walk away. I will pray for that person, and I will ask God to help and enable me to forgive him or her. I will extend grace.
- When I feel neglected, I will think about what would meet my needs. Then I will look for others in situations like mine and reach out to them. I will extend grace.
- I will take that extra moment to say thank you, or hold a door open, or in some small way help or be kind to another person. I will extend grace.
God has been good to me.
God has been so very good to me. God has shown me care and comfort when I’ve been hurting. He has forgiven me of my sins. He has shown me his great love and poured his blessing upon me. God daily shows me grace and mercy. He is my everything, and I want to share his loving kindness with others. I’ll need his help to do this, and I am confident he will provide what I need. Will I sometimes fail? Unfortunately, yes. I am prone to taking my eyes off Jesus and of thinking only of my own needs and wants and hurts. But God is good, and will bring me back to him, and I will see the needs of others again.
Please join me in these troubling times. Set your heart and mind on Jesus. Then, look out for not only your own interests, but the interests of others. Love like Jesus. Extend Grace.
A Prayer
Dear Father God,
We humbly come before you and thank you for the privilege of prayer and for your presence always with and within us.
You have given us so much. Help us to share your love with those we encounter during our day. Help us to think of others’ needs before our own. Help us to forgive others when they hurt us. Help us to show your kindness. Help us to extend grace.
And it’s in the name of Jesus that we pray.
Your daughter,
SJR