Once you see it, you can never unsee it. You know what I am talking about. That symbol, that face, that message, hidden deep within something. A corporate symbol or a visual illusion, that you don’t see at first glance. Yet, when someone points it out to you, you can’t unsee it. No matter how hard you try, you can no longer return to an earlier time when you didn’t see whatever it is that you now see.
Your brain is designed to problem solve, to learn and to grow. Thus, when you program your brain to see something, it doesn’t have the ability to erase it from your hard drive, and unsee it. You can look beyond it. You can look around it. But you will always and forevermore see it. This reality not only applies to the FedEx logo or that picture that is either an old lady or a young woman; this reality applies to your life.
Everything that you do will be seen, sooner or later. Everything that you do will be remembered, by everyone who sees it. Everything that you do, that is seen, can never be unseen. Yes, it can be forgiven, it can be looked past, but it will never be unseen or forgotten. Think about this as you walk through your daily life. Every action that you believe remains hidden, is simply an action that someone hasn’t yet recognized. Once that action is seen, it will never be forgotten by the seer. From that point forward, whoever sees, will remember and will have that data point filed away in their mind’s reference library, under you.
This reality is the very reason why grace is so vital. Grace is not only vital in your relationship with God, but also in your relationship with others. Grace, when it comes to your personal relationships, is seeing what had previously been unseen, and looking past it. Grace is acknowledging what has been and remining open to what can be. Grace is not a free pass to do whatever you want to do. Grace is the source of hope when you realize that you have messed something up. Without grace, we are all truly left to our own devices. No hope of ever being more than we are today. No hope of ever overcoming our bad decisions, our misguided perspectives and our worldly ways.
The catch is this: grace received reveals itself as grace given. If you accept grace in your own life, than you will turn around and extend that very same grace to others. If you don’t extend grace to others, it is simply proof that you never truly received grace in your own life. For in order to truly receive grace in your own life, you must first acknowledge your need for grace. Once you acknowledge your need for grace, you celebrate the possibility that receiving grace presents. Once you celebrate the possibility of grace, you can’t help but share that joy of possibility with others. Nobody who receives grace, keeps it to themselves. Nobody who sees it, can ever unsee it.