“There but for the grace of God go I.”

I hate this phrase with a white-hot passion. First of all, it paints God’s grace as favoritism that preserves some from trials and tribulations while smiting others. Or perhaps it hints at some virtue the speaker possesses that keeps a retributive God from smiting them. Or judges someone for handling their tribulations in a way that makes their life worse.

No matter, the phrase paints a deity that plays favorites in handing out grace and a world of the holy haves and have-nots. 

This is not how grace works at all. The Wikipedia entry for divine grace defines it as:

[…] the divine influence which operates in humans to regenerate and sanctify, to inspire virtuous impulses, and to impart strength to endure trial and resist temptation; and as an individual virtue or excellence of divine origin. (Wikipedia, 2015).

In this context, grace gives us resilience in life. This makes sense, because one of the purposes of religion is to give people meaning in life, particularly helping to make sense of life when bad things happen. 

So divine grace is something all of us have, whether or not we would call it that. It is the sense of greater-than-ourselves that we rely on in the face of loss. Grace plays no favorites; it does not reward some and neglect others. 

“There but for the grace of God go I” is a very comforting construct, because it suggests that God protects the believer from harm or loss. None of us, however, are immune; God does not arrange the lives of Her followers.  It’s a good thing that real divine grace exists to help us through the bad times.