Grace for Quota in Computer Systems ...

Monday, Feb 8, 2016. I have been trying to find a place in our society where the word “grace” plays a significant and clear role. It is of importance for computing systems, when you have some quota, for example, and you are over your quota limit with your number of files or the storage space, then typical UNIX systems provide a “grace period” where you can still go on, but there is a final limit coming soon.

Love of Parents …

But in general, “grace” is not something of particular importance in our modern world. Let us recall: We call it grace if someone gives something to others which is not earned, or which is even beyond the limit or against the rules. If it is just given out of the joy to give, or out of love or friendship, or out of mercy. But if a friend gives something to another friend, we would not call it grace. We would call it friendship. If you love a person and do something for her or him, we do not call it grace either, we call it love. Grace is sometimes used when a punishment for a criminal is dropped to some extent - we say we temper justice with mercy.

Somehow the word grace seems to be linked to God, to the sincere cases, to our relationship to the eternal creator, to the Most High. So what does it mean? It refers to the point that we do not have any tool to make God do some particular thing except for requests. We can ask him to do something, but we cannot buy it nor can we earn it. It also refers to the situation where we are guilty, but he does not punish us - he found away to take the punishment away.

A second example is that of little kids. An infant also cannot do anything to earn the love and provision of its parents. It just lives, and it is needy. And the parents do all what is needed. We could call that “grace”, but usually we don't use this word, but call it parental love. When we come to our relationship to God, we use the word “grace” fur this type of behavior of God.

Be gracious to me …

1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. Blessed is the one who considers the poor!1 In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him; 2 the Lord protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land; you do not give him up to the will of his enemies. 3 The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health. 4 As for me, I said, “O Lord, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you!” (from Psalm 41)

We are all sinners. We are all far away from the love and truth and mercy of God. We all have grown up in a twisted world, full of war and fight and egoism and fraud. We all have ignored both God and our fellow humans. We all are far from being full of love, as God is. That is difficult, within this world, yes - but it does not free us from the responsibility and need to be as loving and truthful as God is.

So when we are thrown onto the sickbed, our sins might come into our mind. We might think about all we have missed to do, all points where we have not been as truthful as we should have been, where we ignored the needs of others, the love of God, and where we have made ourselves dependent on void human systems! Then we come closer to discovering the mercy of God, who still loves us. We might ask him, as David asks: “Oh Lord, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you!” (RWEP) ... more texts