Karma

I used to watch a sitcom called "My Name is Earl".  The show centered around "Earl", a former lowlife who turned his life around because of karma.  In the opening episode, Earl wins the lottery, but is hit by a car as he celebrates.  He wakes in his hospital room to see Carson Daly talking about karma on his late night show. He believes he has found the reason why bad things keep happening to him...Karma.  If you do bad things, bad things will happen to you, but if you do good then good will come back to you.  Each episode of the series chronicles Earl's attempts to cross all the bad things off his list in order to have a better life using the lottery money.  This usually involved tracking down the person he wronged and making it right so he could cross them off his list.  It seems like a good premise and good philosophy to guide your life, but it lacks something....

If most of us were honest with ourselves, we would admit that we can all have this philosophy. We set up conditions for ourselves and others to live by. If I'm good, good is returned to me.  If I do bad, then bad will be returned.  If you're nice to me, then I'm nice you.  If you hurt me, then I hurt you.  What goes around, comes around.  I remember being about six years old and forgetting to take my vitamins and when I got to school, I had a really bad day.  I got a bad grade on a test and my friends weren't playing with me at recess. The next day, I remembered my vitamins, and I had a great day. I continued to remember to take my vitamins, and I had better days, so I began to equate the two.  I believed that if I forgot to take my vitamins, or washed my face before I shampooed my hair, or started applying my makeup on my left side of my face instead of my right that it would be a bad day.  I believed that I had control over my own life.

 Unfortunately, I put these same conditions on other people, but I judge them more harshly because I feel like I am have more willpower or more motivation or more drive to be good.If they made a mistake or hurt me, too bad.  Karma gives me an excuse for treating them badly.  I forget that I'm just as human and fallible as the next person, so I forget to extend the grace that has been extended to me.

You see, that's what is missing from this whole karma thing.  Karma doesn't allow you to make mistakes or bad choices because you'll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It's meant to help you make better choices and to do good things and be nice to everybody else, but eventually the merry-go-round makes you sick.  You give up; you're motivation is gone because you can't be good enough.  Only God's grace, secured for you through Christ's death on the cross can change your heart.  Pastor Tullian Tchividjian says, "Only undeserved grace can truly melt and transform the heart."  Only then will we get rid of our own conditions and be obedient to God because we love Him and want to obey Him. And even if we fail, His grace is there to pick us up, dust us off and help us get back on the ride.