The Unmerited Favor of God

Written by Rachel Conner on Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent

I learned the hard way that you cannot earn someone’s affection. When I was seven years old, I took ballet lessons. One of the girls in my class was the coolest person I had ever met. She was older than most of the others in the class by a year or two and before the lesson started, she would hold court and bestow upon us the wisdom of her years. Her leotard had little pearls sewn into it and came with a swishy skirt that twirled when she did a pirouette. When everyone else was growing their hair out, she cut it short to be different. I wanted to be her, but since I couldn’t do that I wanted to be her best friend.

I tried so hard to be this girl’s friend. I would try to sit next to her at every opportunity. When we split into groups, I would painstakingly count out where I needed to stand in line to be in the same group as her. I invited her to my super-special-fancy-dinner birthday party (we went to Pizza Hut). When it was my turn to bring snack to class, I found out that she loved peanut butter and brought peanut butter cookies. I stopped just short of following her around like a lost sheep, but she was never interested in being more than classmates.

My little 7-year-old self was heartbroken that I couldn’t make this girl like me…until she quit ballet, took up piano, and stopped hanging out with the dance girls. It was an important lesson for me to learn though: You can’t force someone to like you or to be your friend.

Grace is “the free and unmerited favor of God.” I often hear Christians saying things like, “God loves us, even though we don’t deserve it,” or, “God loves us even though we are sinners.” We try so hard to be worthy of that love, to do things that we believe glorify God and to avoid sin, but we will always, always, always fall short because you cannot earn grace. It can only be given freely, and God gives it to us in abundance.

So we are sinners, and we are imperfect, and we need salvation, and God loves us. God doesn’t love us because we’re good people, or because we invite God to our birthday parties. God loves us. Period.

Question for Reflection / Suggestion for Prayer:
How have you tried to earn God’s favor?
Brainstorm ways that you can let God love you.

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 Rachel Conner
Rachel served as a Peer Minister at St. Mary Student Parish during the 2014-2015 academic year. She is currently a Case Manager for Neighborhood Service Organization in Detroit, where she works with at-risk teen girls. She has a great love for cats and a strong desire to one day visit outer space.
Email: [email protected]