How Quickly Do You Extend Grace To Others?

How many times do we demand something of others that we’re not willing to do ourselves? Something as simple as extending grace as quickly as God extends it to us.

It’s easy to point out what others are doing wrong to justify our own behavior. Never mind that the very things we judge others for are often the things we’re guilty of doing ourselves.

God’s Grace

This truth often hits home when we pray each day, thanking God for His lovingkindness, which is new every morning. No matter how much we think we’ve messed up the previous day, we can still go to God. He meets us right where we are and willingly grants us His lovingkindness.

Lamentations 3:22-23(AMPC) says: “It is because of the Lord’s mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great and abundant is Your stability and faithfulness.”

As much as we appreciate what God is doing for us, we recognize in those moments of prayer, the need to extend that same grace, mercy, and kindness to others.

Our Grace Revelation

As a family, we didn’t fully understand this principle until we personally faced financial hardship. Until then, we couldn’t comprehend why people mismanaged their money, had bad credit, or didn’t own a home. It was easy to judge when everything seemed to be going well in our own lives.

We had little patience or empathy for those struggling with their finances—until we experienced financial devastation ourselves. As we’ve shared on the blog, when the real estate market crashed, we lost everything. As a result of both of us working in the real estate and mortgage industry at the time, the crash completely changed our lives.

However, this lost was the catalyst to understanding how to manage kingdom finances as opposed to managing worldly finances.

That setback taught us a powerful lesson: financial challenges can arise through no fault of one’s own. Whether due to medical bills, divorce, job loss, or other unexpected circumstances, hardships happen.

This realization opened our eyes and softened our hearts. We began to empathize with those facing financial struggles and we began to share our story of lost to help others.

Through this experience, we realized how often we’ve messed up, yet God still extends His lovingkindness, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and blessings to us—over and over again, whether we deserve it or not. And now we find ourselves extending that same grace to others in many of other areas we may have overlooked. 

In The End

When someone tests our patience, we might say, “That’s it. I’m only giving them one more chance.” But praise God, He isn’t like that! How many times have we all failed that “one last chance”?

It’s amazing how, when God opens your eyes in one area, that revelation applies to so many others. For us, learning to give people grace regarding finances expanded to giving grace in every area. After all, we never know the battles someone is fighting behind the scenes.

So, we ask you: will you purpose in your heart to extend the same lovingkindness to others as quickly as God extends it to you?

~André and Timberley Gray