New Year's resolution: EGR

Are you an EGR giver or receiver?

What is EGR? Well, in Rick Warren's book, A Purpose -Driven Life"; EGR stands for extra grace required. You know...there is that person who's personality and behavior just rubs you the wrong way to the point that you want to smack them. The person needs extra grace.

Up until my recent family vacation to Palm Springs, I thought I was only an EGR giver to other people. This probably wasn't true, but I thought this to be the case. Well......no longer.

Let me briefly give the scenario. My wife and I planned to take a long (2 week) family vacation this year (2008) to Palm Springs, CA. We managed to make it all the way to December without "losing it" due to a lack of vacation. So, we go away just before Christmas to experience our long-awaited trip. One of the special activities my wife wanted to experience was a "whale watching tour on the Pacific Ocean". The first attempt at this cruise was shortened to 30 minutes because of the excessive winds made the ocean unsafe for our journey. We were given our money back. We rescheduled 5 days later when the weather was perfect. We are out on the boat and we come across a massive school of dolphins. It was incredible. They were everywhere...jumping, swimming along side our boat.....it was incredible and beautiful. My wife was "soooooooo" excited.

Then I hear, "my camera memory card is saying full". So....me to the rescue. I thought I would be able to go in, change the pixel size, and create more room for several more pictures. Well, here comes the EGR moment. I stumbled to a screen that said format memory card. I opened it thinking I would see what I needed to click on to create more room on the memory card. It re-formatted the memory card.....and all of my wife's pictures up to this point on our vacation (200+ photos) were deleted!

Can you say, "grounds for divorce", or "jump off the boat and drown yourself"? I, in a 2 second 'menu screen blunder'; sucked all the excitement and joy from my wife's face. I was sick. There were no "do-overs". They were gone, and I was a goner.

At this point, my wife did what I did not think would happen. Through all her disappointment, anger, and complete disbelief - she offered me grace. She said, "Rich, I am so upset; but I know it was an accident." She told me she loved me. I now understood what it means to be an EGR receiver.

So...what is the point to this long blog: whether an EGR giver or receiver, know that true grace comes from God. My wife's relationship with Christ enabled her to give me grace when it was not deserved. So.....in 2009, I am going to give God's grace to all who don't deserve it. I am going to pray that when I do not deserve it, someone will offer it to me. If we all do this, 2009 will be a very special year where God's grace is everywhere!

God's grace is our "do-overs". His Son died in our place so we could have a "do-over" on life - with the chance to live life eternally with God. Be the ultimate EGR receiver....accept Christ as your Savior and experience His grace. I was reminded of how that feels during my vacation.

Happy New Year to all........and to all.....God's grace and peace.