Pre-emptive Grace sounds like a fancy theological phrase but it’s simply my term for being a spiritual prepper, for cultivating and stock piling enough grace and forgiveness that you are prepared for the inevitable future foolishness of humankind.

I kid you not! This is something us cynics with a touch of prophetic skill have to do. Otherwise you wind up in a constant state of anxiety and distress. Well, what if it all goes wrong? Oh it will, and much more spectacularly then you ever thought possible. So how are you going to deal with it? The same way you deal with every other offense to your soul, by applying massive amounts of forgiveness and grace and of course by trusting in the Lord who will walk through it with you.

I believe our sins are forgiven, past, present, and future, the one’s we haven’t even stepped in yet. By the same token, I need to cultivate some grace for the sins and failures of others that have not even happened yet.

Shalom is a really interesting word, it means peace, well being, but it has much deeper meanings which I think are so cool for those of us who reside in the anxiety department. I snagged this right off of Wikipedia so you will know I am not the only one to have noticed this, “Thus from the root sh-l-m come the words shalom (“peace, well-being”), hishtalem (“it was worth it”), shulam (“was paid for”), meshulam (“paid for in advance”), mushlam (“perfect”), and shalem (“whole”).”

I so love that, “it was worth it,” “paid for in advance,” and “perfect and whole.” That’s the gospel! That’s in the Bible. That’s Jesus in one word.

The way you attain more grace, so as to be able to extend it to others, is to receive it yourself. As it says in the Bible, “Therefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”

Just so you know, I actually do not just hover three feet above the ground in a state of grace at all times. I actually do wish we could just smack people in the head, teach them a lesson, or at the very least make them teachable, so they will learn from their many mistakes. I’m not really talking about little things but rather big things like, wars and empires and great fortunes. There used to be a bumper sticker that said, “just evolve already.” It used to make me laugh! Sorry, not happening. Plan accordingly. Prep your soul and leave the toilet paper on the shelf.