I had a conversation recently that drastically changed, possibly forever, the way I approach and understand my fellow Christians. Today I want to present you with two kinds of Christians. Yes, putting people, especially faith-people in a box can be dangerous, offensive, and limiting, but we've been doing it since Paul saw Jesus on the road to Damascus: Jews and Gentiles, circumcised and baptized, Catholic and Protestant, Calvinist and Armenian, the list goes on and on. So bear with me.
I want to suggest that these two kinds of Christians are likely both represent in your circle of friends. They are the Gracers and the Sustainers. Let me just insert a disclaimer here that the remainder of this post is exceedingly generalized. Most people will likely find holes in it. There, now that that's done, we can move on. Open minds here, people; I'm only human and this is still learning and practice.
Gracers are the Christians who have a day-month-year anniversary for their salvation, who may or may not have been raised in a Christian home, but came to personally know Jesus later in the life, probably after making a few (or more) not-great choices, and can recall a time in their lives where they didn't know Jesus. They love the song Amazing Grace; these are the folks Jesus drew out of the pit.
The other kind, Sustainers, are the ones who have home videos of themselves reciting the NIV version of Psalm 23 as toddlers. Granted, they do fall down and get dirty occasionally, but they're the ones who were, generally, raised in a Christian home and learned their colors, numbers, and vegetables from a happy mix of a Children's Bible, Veggie Tales and the Chronicles of Narnia. For this bunch, Jesus was as real as the color orange and they cannot remember a time when it didn't feel totally natural to talk to, cry with or yell at Him.
The whole point of this post is to highlight the fact that neither one of these Christians are better, worse or on a faster track toward heaven than the other. They both have their strengths, but boy do they have their blindspots too. My recent conversation with a very close friend revealed that I am a Sustainer and he is a Gracer, which explains a lot of our discussions on faith over the last several years. Let me give you a few basic examples that this realization cleared up.
First up, missions. As a 24 year old Sustainer, I cannot understand why the Gracers in my life are all already hyped up about missions. Local, regional, global, you name it. Forget jobs, forget college, forget car payments. Gracers want to tell everybody about Jesus. As a Sustainer, Jesus is, as I said, like the color orange. He's just there and soon enough, people will figure out what they've been looking at their whole lives. For Gracers, Jesus became real to them and He still needs to become real to others. In some ways, both of us are right.
Second, prayer. Again, I'm speaking super generally here, but Gracers tend to struggle with prayer, especially in the first few months and years of their faith. Prayer for them begins with figuring out what to say and moves towards spilling your soul like David. I've noticed that Gracers, especially new ones, struggle with silence and often, listening. Sustainers, however, are usually the other way around. They've been talking to God as long as they've been able to form words so they think it comes naturally. As a result, Sustainers are often comfortable with long monologues or long stretches of silence from God. We call it worship via quiet quality time. Unfortunately, this can lead to the feeling that prayer is easy or even worse, unnecessary, a myth that this very blog is designed to debunk. By the same token, Sustainers also tend to forget about the importance of...
Scripture. Sometimes, Sustainers settle for knowing it once-upon-a-lifetime and fall back on Sunday School memorization. Then again, they might not read it as often, but they know it like they know how to drive. Gracers, on the other hand, cannot stop reading. This guy Jesus just crashed into their lives and there's a whole book about him, you guys!! Unfortunately, how you know Scripture, how you pray and how you feel about your own salvation are all good signposts, but how those beliefs are lived out can be completely different between and among Gracers and Sustainers.
So let's get a little more complicated. Aka applicational.
Fear. Sustainers are, well, Sustainers...they've seen scary before, they're almost comfortable in it. In fact, they can be a bit cocky, but they give great hugs and motivational speeches. Gracers get a little panicky because Gracers are afraid of relapse and they remember before. And that's ok. That's healthy.
Grace. Obviously, Gracers get this. In fact, I firmly believe Sustainers could learn a thing or two from Gracers, especially Gracers who have been to prison. They have a very unique view of justification that Sustainers just don't get (but angels do, because they saw a lot of it in the New Testament). A friend of mine who tends to speak before she thinks once said to a well-known local Sustainer, "You've been saved for so long, you don't remember what it was like to be broken." ... Ouch. But true.
Mercy. I'm only separating mercy from grace because, although they are similar, Sustainers tend to grasp mercy the same way Gracers grasp grace. Hey, say that ten times fast! Really though, Sustainers have seen a lot of stuff, and they've seen a lot of people through a lot of stuff, so they usually have both a confidence and a compassion towards Christians who mess up that Gracers sometimes forget about after salvation.
Finally, hope. Sustainers eat, live and breathe hope. The beautiful thing is, so do Gracers. Sustainers do it because it's kept them going, Gracers do it because it's what got their attention in the first place. No matter how many differences we see between the Christian who's been saved since crawling days and the Christian who's been saved since yesterday, they're all going the same direction. Jesus told the thief on the cross, Today you will be with me in Paradise. That thief got to the disciple's destination before they did and he'd only been 'walking' for about 20 minutes. If you're a fan of fairness, Christianity is not for you. At the end of the day, Sustainers can learn a lot from Gracers and Gracers can learn a lot from Sustainers. And at the End of Days, both will laugh about how much they didn't know.
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