This amazing find came by way of our friend Luke Mackinnon.
John Newton’s Falling into Grace is a profound paperback that packs a punch. The Episcopal priest expands upon the beauty and mystery of God’s grace, which “permeates our life right down to the smallest detail.” The act of letting go and allowing God’s life to fully take over our own feels a lot like falling, and our safety net is grace. This passage, in the chapter “Accepting Acceptance,” unpacks the narrative of Jacob stealing his brother’s birthright from their blind father Isaac and our difficulty in understanding grace as it is given to us despite our sinful nature.
Jacob steals a blessing by pretending to be someone he’s not. We are no different than Jacob. Our need for acceptance is so strong that we will do anything we need to do to feel accepted and blessed. This is because the world we live in doesn’t issue unconditional blessings. This is a problem because we all have a deep and divine need to feel accepted and blessed. Our world says that to be blessed we need to perform, look good, stay young, and be funny, clever, interesting, or rich. The world’s blessings is only awarded to people that earn it. The world doesn’t just dole out acceptance for free, and the default instinct of the human heart is to project this anti-grace nonsense onto God… We forget that grace doesn’t use sticks and carrots, and that it expects nothing from us at all. Grace just dies for our life.
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