It happens every time we plan on leaving for some kind of vacation — the increasing of the already hurried pace of trying to get things done, make sure details are cleared, and communications made. And every time there is a moment, sometimes a short one and sometimes a long one, where I think to myself, “is it really worth all this work to just get away for a few days?” Sometimes the answer is “yes, I think it is.” Probably more often the answer is, “no, but I’ve made promises and people tell me this will be good for me.” To their credit, it usually is and I just can’t see it from the pile in front of me.
Sometimes we can think about eternal life with God like a vacation. We can look forward to it, wonder what the beaches are going to be like and if we’ll actually be able to grab a nap or if the choirs of angels will keep us up. We can also look at our earthly “to-do” list and get vexed, anxious, and depressed. We can start to think about all of the things we hope to get done in an earthly life and feel like we’re trapped. Thank goodness God doesn’t leave our departure time up to us, otherwise we’d have 1,000 year old people walking around muttering about “I just need to do this one more thing…”
But that’s the crazy thing about grace. Grace assures us that while we may feel like there are things to get done, they are taken care of. When I go on vacation, this usually happens about 200 miles out. At 200 miles out I usually think of something I forgot. Some email I forgot to send or something we forgot to pack or something. And at that moment, I have this thought that sounds a little negative but is actually pretty freeing: “either someone else is going to get this done or it’s going to fall through the cracks.” That is actually what grace sounds like, “either someone else is going to get this done or it’s going to fall through the cracks.”
The promise of grace is this: someone else is going to do this, and it’s Jesus. Jesus is going to handle the righteousness and righteous deeds that we’re not getting done. Or it’s going to fall through the cracks because it’s not as important as we’ve made it out to be. I’m going to try to remind myself of that for the next couple of days as I continue to prepare for vacation, but it’s probably worth the reminder even as we await eternal life offered to us in a grace that says “either Someone else is going to get this done, or it’s going to fall through the cracks.” Either way, we’re ok.