Extended Grace

I recently bumped into a man, who I’ll call Fred, who wanted to collect what his friends owed him. He was tired of tracking the loans, as it was a significant amount of money due to the effects of the economy. He started with his friends who owed him the biggest amounts of money. One friend, who I’ll call Tom, owed him $6,000 that he used to pay off his credit card to alleviate the high monthly interest rate.

As you might suspect, Tom was not in a position to pay off the loan and was hoping to make small monthly payments for years to come. However, Fred pressured him to have a garage sale and he collected $900 from it. Since this was a small amount of what Tom still owed and money was now tighter than ever, Tom begged Fred for mercy.

Fred surprised the daylights out of Tom by canceling his debt. They were even. Tom was extremely excited about the turn of events. His emotional and mental strength quickly rebounded from the depression he faced. With his new outlook in life, Tom went to one of his friends who I’ll call Beth, and immediately demanded that she pay him the $100 she had borrowed.

When Beth wasn’t able to pay him, he took her High Definition television set as collateral and told Beth he’d bring it back once she paid the $100 debt. Fred told me how shocked he was when word got back to him. He immediately ended his friendship with Tom, especially since Tom wasn’t the man he thought he was. Tom got laid off three months later and found no one willing to help him out financially. In fact, Fred said that no one was around to console him or give him food.

I shared the parable of the forgiven debt with Fred and asked him why he didn’t help Tom once he was down. Fred told me that he was too insulted and couldn’t trust Tom’s sincerity or humility, especially since he was unable to pass on the same grace he had received.

I asked Fred if anyone had paid a debt for him and if he in turn might want to reconsider helping Tom. Fred proudly shared that he never needed help financially. So, I asked him if he ever needed help spiritually, emotionally or mentally. To which he replied, “Grace isn’t grace, unless it is freely given.” While I agreed with the boundaries that Fred put in his life so Tom wouldn’t continue to siphon off his funds, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was still something that could be done for Tom.

It later dawned on me that God gives all of us a chance to receive His grace and the day will come when the gift will no longer be available to those not wanting it. Tom clearly didn’t understand the friendship he had with Fred, nor did he understand the generosity of his gift. So, eventually Fred stopped extending his generosity to the man who never appreciated it.

Do you appreciate what God, your friends and family extended toward you?

Appreciation Shown through Extraordinary Effort

Hallmark had one of the busiest days of the year yesterday – Mother’s Day. Many women were glad their husbands, boyfriends and sons celebrated who they were with cards and flowers, but some were disappointed to learn the card and gifts were picked up that same day. They were disappointed that their men didn’t shop the day before or even Friday night.

Women barely care about the gift and card itself, unless the card took more than a few minutes to pick out – Always appreciating the found card that perfectly matches the woman’s heart and personality. Woman are more interested in knowing that they were well thought of and that time was spent searching for something special as the man repeatedly paid attention to who she was.

A friend of mine once told me why she slaved over making fancy h’orderves for tea parties. She said that it was a gift of love that other women could truly appreciate. It was an act of kindness that showed respect, care and love.

I explored this level of appreciation in hopes of learning how women think. I developed h’orderves that looked like an army of cute little penguins. Every time I made the cute little guys, I’d receive compliments galore, but not for the reason I thought.

The penguins always had admirers, but it wasn’t until one woman confided in me that I learned the truth. She told me that while the penguins were precious, the thing that made it special was the vast amount of time it took me to prepare the treat. I questioned what she said, so she asked how long it took me to make. Not knowing what she was getting at, I told her about 90 minutes. Her face lit up with a huge smile and said, “See.” To which I replied, “What?”

She said that the penguins looked like I spent a lot of time to create the dish and shared that the act of love and kindness is what thrilled the women eating the tasty morsels. In other words, the action I took made the h’orderves taste great – It wasn’t the cuteness of the little guys or their flavor. In fact, those who hated cream cheese, which made the white belly, ate the entire guy with a smile on their face.

Women appreciate all the struggles and activities a man goes through in order to make them feel special. They adore the men who take things to a deeper level and search for just the right gift that speaks volumes of the one they love. Unfortunately, society has taught men to not be considerate in the area of emotional expression or sentiment.

Our society teaches us to streamline our lives for convenience, avoiding anything that takes a hearty effort to accomplish. Even the trades and corporate world praises the man who can make quick decisions that seem to work, over the man who takes incredibly long amounts of time to perfectly compose an answer that is heartfelt and accurate. Society is all about getting things 80% right and not worrying about the last 20%.

However, women are all about the last 20% and love it when a man pays detailed attention to her. They are well aware how difficult the task is and how much energy is exhausted. Yet, most men continue to find the quick fix that gets it mostly right, not understanding that the activity of overcoming the challenge and the deep focus on her is what blesses the woman.

I’m reminded of Isaiah 55:2 which reminds us that we can have the same deep intimate relationship with God that King David had, as long as we focus on the right things, not the convenient or common.

Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

Isaiah 55:2 (NIV)

Do you know God enough to spend detailed time preparing your acts of worship for Him?

Are you taking the same time to prepare and take care of those intimate details for the women in your life?

It’s all about relationship, not functionality being quickly squeezed into your life for those who are present. As men, we need to block out time in our schedules to write little notes, make quiet phone calls or create unique thoughtful gifts for those women in our lives we appreciate. We need to speed the time and money on the things that are temporal for the sake of showing her how special she truly is.

One man told me he gives his wife a pot of flowers every so often because he sees no sense in cutting and killing red roses that will wither in a few days. She on the other hand told me how little she is loved because she was only valued at the level of a common household plant and longed to find a man who would cherish her enough to give her roses.

I’m definitely a rose kind of guy. But, even I, being known for my creativity, will have to step up someday for a special woman who’ll expect me to stretch who I am in demonstrating my appreciation for her. On that day, I’ll give her a very rare, seed grown blue rose.

Simple Truth in Modern Language