You are GRACED, not graded...

So it’s the middle of the quarter, last quarter of the year, and I have this huge problem called PROCRASTINATION.  Wait, I've always had it, not just this quarter.  So I was feeling, I’m still not good at assessing these kids.  Am I focused on the most accurate grading criteria?  I have 7 standards; can I just grade those specifically?  Yet, it’s just easier to categorize them as I have already. 

I said to myself, “I’m so glad I’m not graded.”  Grading is so stressful and not fun.  The anxiety of it all is just too much.  Can you imagine being the one graded?  The students, they must feel it, especially if they care.   Have you ever felt like you just haven't done enough?  Or enough of the right things?  Or you know you've done too much wrong?  And there is not enough time to do the right things to balance out all of the wrong you've done in life?  What pressure!

It’s taken me a very long time to stop climbing the merit ladder, you know the one the world climbs and falls from so often?  It’s just an endless attempt to climb higher and the moment you fall, you feel like you hit every rung of the ladder on the way down?  Either way, you’re battered, bruised and possibly broken; spiritually, emotionally and physically.   How about taking the elevator next time?  That may be much easier.  Only this time, let’s call it God’s lift. 

God’s lift is called GRACE. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8).  God is high and lifted up, He has lifted you up with him.  You have been saved, chosen for Heaven through your faith.  When you heard the Word, you combined your hearing with faith, and then confessed that Jesus is Lord.  In that moment, you stepped into God’s work of grace.  He has lifted you off of your merit ladder.  Are you tired of climbing already?  Now you can rest. 

So often as a teacher, when I pass back graded papers, I see and hear the students cheer and share their grades.  They boast carelessly and often.  Why do they boast?  Because at school they are completing tasks all on their own, their grade is their own.  That is what we, teachers, say to them, that is what they have come to believe because they hear this all the time.  Of course they would boast!  But what if I wrote “GRACE” on their paper?  I know exactly what their reaction would be…I can see it now.  

Some students would turn their head to the side and squint their eyes in confusion, “What is that?  What does "GRACE" mean?”  Why did you write that?  Is that good?  Is that bad?  Did you grade this?  They would honestly be dumb-founded, simply because students are so programmed for clarity in their own eyes.  And so are we. 

The things we see clearly are so much more comforting.  The things you can check off of your checklist make you feel good, like you’re headed in the right direction.  You feel accomplished.  But what about the days, you’re completely unproductive, you feel like a slob and you accomplish nothing?  Can you catch up with only the moments you have left in the day?  Most likely it's impossible.  

That is when God writes “Grace” across your entire to-do list.  He has done this all of your life!  Not only on the days you mess up, but even on your best days.  All of your days’ work doesn’t compare to God’s work of GRACE!  What do you choose, keep climbing on your merit ladder, climbing and falling repeatedly, like the world?  Or God’s lift, the one that is lifted high and lifted up? 

Running His Race,

Erin Beth