Finding a Safe Place in Grace

Great piece by Justin Buzzard on grace creating safety- places where people can be real and be accepted.

We’ve all experienced (and contributed to) this dynamic: You are afraid to share what you’re really thinking and what’s really going on in your life with your spouse/friend/parent/church leader because you fear they will use this information against you. You’re afraid that sharing reality will result in being challenged, fixed, or judged, instead of being known, understood, and loved. This dynamic creates unhealthy cultures in marriages, friendships, churches, and workplaces–people never share what’s really going on because they’re afraid, and this stunts both intimacy and growth.

Fortunately, this unhealthy dynamic can be replaced with a healthy dynamic: grace. Grace is God’s undeserved love. When an individual embraces a grace-based identity (instead of a performance-based identity) and standing with God, he or she becomes capable of extending grace (undeserved love) to other people. This individual becomes secure, and safe. This individual now has the ability to truly listen to what another person is really thinking, to what is really going on, without attempting to immediately use that information against the person.

See, grace creates safety. Grace creates a culture of safety where people can face and talk about reality. And, lest any of you think I’m being soft on sin, change, or sanctification, the crazy truth is that this grace-soaked culture of safety is what finally results in people changing.

Think about it. Environments and relationships that approximate unconditional love are what resulted in true, deep change and healing in your own life. When you experienced grace and felt safe, you finally opened up. And then you finally began to get help where you most needed it.Grace creates safety, which creates change.

How can you be such a person to others? How can you use your leadership to create such environments?

“‘I will place him in the safety for which he longs.’”-Psalm 12:5