{"id":3313,"date":"2024-01-18T08:08:40","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T13:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3313"},"modified":"2024-01-18T08:09:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T13:09:51","slug":"extra-grace-required","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/18\/extra-grace-required\/","title":{"rendered":"Extra Grace Required"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,<\/em> click here<\/a>
 
Some of the most celebrated names in spiritual history are martyrs \u2013 men and women who surrendered their lives instead of surrendering their faith.
 
Church tradition suggests that 11 of the original 12 apostles met violent ends.  Courageous martyrs also figure prominently in the stories of Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.
 
In the Middle Ages we encounter Joan of Arc, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and Savonarola, all of whom went to the stake.  It\u2019s estimated that during the past 100 years more followers of Jesus have died for their faith than the previous nineteen centuries combined. 
 
Above all there is Jesus himself, whose martyrdom looms at the center of his ongoing message and ministry.
 
The great majority of us, at least here in the West, will never be called to make a life-or-death choice concerning our loyalty to Christ.  But all of us, at one time or another, are likely to be tempted to become an altogether different kind of martyr.
 
These are men and women who are very much alive \u2013 but who have concluded, for one reason or another, that they are victims in the game of life.
 
A martyr is someone for whom self-pity has become normality.  Almost all of us feel despair from time to time.  But the martyr is the person who has waved the white flag before both real and imagined unfairness, and often refuses even to try to get back up. 
 
The martyr may say, \u201cEverybody uses me.  Rarely do I hear thanks for what I do.  Why do all these bad things happen to me, anyway?  Nobody really knows how awful it is to be me.\u201d 
 
As psychologist Les Parrott documents in his book High Maintenance Relationships, <\/em>martyrs tend to thrive on such convictions, and may even enjoy the spotlight.  At times you can feel like a fly being lured into the spider\u2019s web, especially if you tell a martyr that you have a problem.  She might answer, \u201cYou call that a problem?  Let me tell you what I\u2019m<\/u><\/em> facing!\u201d 
 
Martyrs frequently express the hope that someone will come to their rescue.  Paradoxically, however, they struggle to receive such gifts of grace. 
 
That would mean losing control, becoming dependent, or, worse yet, giving up the right to tell someone else their heart-wrenching story. 
 
Sometimes martyrs blame themselves.  They feel convinced they are cursed somehow, and mess up everything and everyone they touch. 
 
Rabbi Harold Kushner remembers calling on two different families where the matriarch had died of natural causes.  At the first home, the son of the deceased woman told Kushner, \u201cIf only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold, she would be alive today.  It\u2019s my fault she died.\u201d  At the second home, the son told the rabbi, \u201cIf only I hadn\u2019t insisted on sending my mother to Florida, she would be alive today.  It\u2019s my fault she died.\u201d
 
Several times this week it\u2019s occurred to me, as a resident of Indiana, that I would pretty much give anything to be in Florida right now instead of facing these life-threatening wind-chills every hour.  Not that I\u2019m a martyr or anything. 
 
Martyrs can be just as ready to blame others, however.  If only they had had better schools, or better faith communities, or better work partners, life wouldn\u2019t be such a mess. 
 
Oprah Winfrey once played host to a group of self-identified victims who complained that they were incapable of finishing anything they attempted in life.  The reason, they concluded, is that they had been born via C-section, instead of being allowed to finish their natural arrival into the world.  Some of them were preparing to sue their parents and their doctors for wrongful birth. 
 
Living with a continual focus on pain, ultimately, is a choice.  The problem is that there is a sufficient amount of pain in the world to keep martyrs in business for the rest of their days. 
 
Martyrs are EGRs.  That stands for \u201cextra grace required\u201d individuals.
 
Here\u2019s a secret: All of us are EGRs. <\/em>
 
We all stand, all the time, in need of massive doses of God\u2019s grace, as well as grace from other people. 
 
Which means that not a single person we see today deserves to be condemned, mocked, or written off as a hopeless case \u2013 beginning with the person you see in the mirror every morning.
 
So, make the choice:  Refuse to be a martyr.
 
After all, Someone has already gladly accepted that role on your behalf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Some of the most celebrated names in spiritual history are martyrs \u2013 men and women who surrendered their lives instead of surrendering their faith. Church tradition suggests that 11 of the original 12 apostles met violent ends.  Courageous martyrs also figure prominently in the stories of Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. In the Middle… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[541,101,677],"class_list":["post-3313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-egrs","tag-grace","tag-martyrs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3316,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313\/revisions\/3316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}