Grace-shaped retailing

Grace. We talk as though we understand the term. The bank gives us a grace period. The seedy politician falls from grace. Musicians speak of a grace note. We describe an actress as gracious, a dancer as graceful. We use the word for hospitals, baby girls, kings and pre-meal prayers. We talk as though we know what grace means.

But do we really understand it? Have we settled for a wimpy grace that politely occupies a phrase in a hymn, fits nicely on a church sign? It never causes trouble or demands a response.

But God’s grace is greater than the labels we’ve put on it and more powerful than we can describe. It has a drenching about it. A wildness about it. A white-water, riptide, turn-you-upside-downness about it. Grace comes after us. It rewires us.

The grace of God changes us and shapes us. Strengthens and softens us. Snatches us by the nape of the neck and shakes us to our senses.

It changes everything.

Including the way we run bookstores.

May I offer a few thoughts on grace-shaped retailing?

Resting in Grace

Are you working hard?

I don’t even need to ask. I know the answer to that. We all are.

It seems to me that bookstore owners and staff work harder than most. Long days on your feet. Wide smiles for even the snappiest customers. Lifting boxes of heavy books. Recommending Lucado titles.

It’s an unending cycle. We race. We run. Work weeks drag like Arctic winters. Monday mornings show up on Sunday night. We slug our way through long lines and long hours with faces made long by the long lists of things we need to do, customers we try to please, websites we need to upgrade or gadgets we need to buy.

Every time we catch our breath, someone else needs something else. Another task master cracks his whip.

And we’re tired. We’re worn out and weary. We’re worried.

The work continues, and it’s important work, this spreading the good news of the gospel through written words and recorded music. Sharing words of the hope found in Christ alone is essential.

And I bet sometimes it feels a little never-ending.

So the grace-shaped retailer finds rest in the one place where it can be found. In the arms of God.

Take this one worry of your place. You don’t have to wonder if you’re doing enough to please God. Of all the things in life you have to earn, his unending affection is not one of them. You have it. Stretch yourself out in the hammock of grace.

You can rest in that.

And you can rest in the work that God’s grace is doing in your life.

Relying on Grace

If you’re having a hard time resting in grace, maybe you’re having a hard time relying on grace. Maybe your view is a little small and your understanding a little bit little.

Grace is simply another word for God’s tumbling, rumbling reservoir of strength and protection. It comes at us not occasionally or miserly, but constantly and aggressively, wave upon wave. Grace upon grace.

May I use my friends Heather Sample and Kyle Sheets as an example? This father and daughter joined a team of medical missionaries treating AIDS patients in Zimbabwe. While this wasn’t Kyle’s first medical mission trip, it was the first time his hand had been cut during surgery. The first time he’d been directly exposed to the AIDS virus.

Heather urged Kyle to immediately begin the anti-retroviral treatment in order to prevent HIV infection. Both knew the treatment wasn’t without side effects. Within hours, he was violently ill as they faced a 40-hour trip back to the States.

By the time they boarded their transatlantic flight from South Africa, Kyle was having trouble breathing and was unable to sit up. Incoherent. Eyes yellowed. Liver enlarged and painful. Both doctors recognized the symptoms of acute liver failure. Heather felt the full weight of her father’s life on her shoulders.

Several minutes into the flight Kyle drifted off to sleep. Heather made her way to the bathroom where she slumped on the floor in a fetal position, wept and prayed, I need help.

Before long a concerned passenger knocked on the door asking if she was OK. She told him she was a doctor. His face brightened as he explained that he and 99 of the other passengers were physicians as well. One hundred physicians from Mexico were on the flight, one of them a top-tier infectious disease specialist, who offered to evaluate and watch Kyle while Heather rested.

Kyle is now fully healed, but with an amazing story of God’s provision and protection. Can you imagine 100 doctors right there, just when he needed them?

Maybe your transatlantic flight isn’t illness. Maybe it’s the red ink in the ledger. The dishonest employee. The downturn in the economy or the spike in rent.

Sustaining grace meets us at our point of need and equips us with courage, wisdom and strength. It surprises us in the middle of our personal transatlantic flights with ample resources of faith. Sustaining grace does not promise the absence of struggle, but the presence of God in it.

Rely on God’s grace to show up. It will.

Giving Grace

Relying on grace means accepting it. And to accept grace is to accept the vow to give it. Grace doesn’t stop with us. It pours out of us into even life’s hardest situations.

We all know the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. We heard it in Sunday school, maybe even saw the flannel-graph version. Maybe in high school or college you even acted out a modern-day version of the foot-washing.

Jesus—CEO, head coach, king of the world, sovereign of the seas—washed the feet of his disciples in the Upper Room.

Feet with heels and toenails. Bunions and fungus. Corns and calluses. Some maybe large enough to warrant a zip code.

And Jesus touched them. He touched the stinky, ugly parts of his disciples. Knowing he could arch an eyebrow or clear his throat and every angel in the universe would snap to attention. Knowing that all authority was His, He exchanged His robe for the servant’s wrap, lowered himself to knee level and began to rub away the grime, the grit and grunge of a long journey.

And he didn’t pass a single man. He didn’t skip Peter, who would deny Him. He didn’t pass Judas, who would betray Him.

And that water still washes feet. Look down. If you’ve accepted God’s grace, your feet are wet too.

But receiving grace isn’t the end of the story. It wasn’t for the disciples and it’s not for you. Grace is a two-way street where we receive it and then give it to others.

Is it tempting to be stingy with grace? Of course. Hurts run deep. Rude customers. Demanding vendors. Angry coworkers.

But as we consider the amount of grace poured out on us, giving it—even to the rude, demanding and angry—becomes not only easier, but essential.

If grace were a wheat field, God has bequeathed you the state of Kansas. Can’t you share your grace with others?

So, I leave you with an essential question. Is your retailing shaped by grace? Are you resting in grace, relying on grace and giving it out as generously as you’re receiving it? If you find yourself weary, quick to snap or slow to offer a smile to a customer this week, would you remember that God’s grace is greater than the toughest situation you’re facing? Rest, rely and give.

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