[BigV]

I'll open the question to all the dwellars, since I find your answer unhelpful. I'm pretty sure I know what Grace is; undeserved mercy. What I still don't get is how it is that God's mercy (grace) is sometimes bestowed (God picks me up) and sometimes withheld (God is stopped) (which I find...incomprehensible still). In the one case you say it is undeserved (grace is mercy that is undeserved) because I've fallen short and in the other case it is *also* undeserved because I've sinned.

I think we can both agree that I live in a continuous state of undeservedness. I am continuously falling short, indeed, continuously sinning. Any mercy I get will be the very definition of gracce--undeserved. But I am still mystified why I sometimes receive it and sometimes not, since I'm always undeserving.

Frankly, this doesn't feel good. It feels arbitrary. Less charitably, it feels tautological--this is not a compliment. I sin, I fall short, I am undeserving, all the time. Sometimes I get mercy sometimes not. And your explanation is that when I get mercy it is because I only fell short. And when I don't get mercy it is because I sinned. But there's no explanation of the differences! Where is the cause and where is the effect? For that matter, where is the personal responsibility?