{"id":112721,"date":"2026-03-18T17:02:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T00:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/?p=112721"},"modified":"2026-03-18T17:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T00:18:28","slug":"letting-grace-become-qa-with-john-roger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/archives\/112721-letting-grace-become-qa-with-john-roger","title":{"rendered":"Letting Grace Become \u2013 Q&A with John-Roger"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is a Q&A from a sharing with John-Roger in October 1994.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Question:<\/p>\n

I’m one of those people who has a tendency to make it tough to live in grace. Like, I work at it. I let go of a lot of things over the last couple of years that were keeping me living under the law, and I\u2019ve just been filled with grace. And yet I find myself still sort of struggling or trying too hard. How can I move into just letting grace be easy in my life?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

J-R:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have been doing that. You just told everyone that you gave up this and you gave up that and everything\u2019s really going fine along those lines, so you\u2019re moving in the right direction. But I think maybe you\u2019re looking for grace to be like some temple in the sky where you sit all day.<\/p>\n

Sharer:<\/p>\n

Well, that would be nice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

J-R:<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, it really wouldn\u2019t be, because you have a body that you have to walk around. The idea that grace is not hard is really nice. If it\u2019s starting to be hard, you\u2019re under law. So even giving up the struggle for going for grace, and just saying, \u201cI\u2019m not going for grace, I\u2019m going to give that up,\u201d might be the very thing that releases you to experience it. So, it isn\u2019t something that you go for as much as it\u2019s something you let become.<\/p>\n

Sharer:<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what\u2019s hard, letting it become.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

J-R:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, you may not know it\u2019s becoming, because of the way it\u2019s becoming to you. You want it to come in like thunder, lightning, or a railway train so that you\u2019ll know it\u2019s there. You know, rumbling and all the pretense of that. It comes in very naturally, like breathing. Some people who are living in grace, and have for a long time, are moving very slowly into it. When they are in maybe their tenth or eleventh year of Discourses, they go back and re-read number one or two and realize that they are really full of something beautiful. When they read the notes that they took in the Discourses at that time of what they were going through, they find that they don\u2019t go through those things anymore. When did that change?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like in Fiddler on the Roof, when the father sings, I don\u2019t remember growing older, when did that happen? And when did my little daughter grow up? I don\u2019t remember seeing her grow up, and now she\u2019s getting married. And it goes on, sunrise, sunset, sunrise, etc. So, the whole line of things just goes along in a pretty normal way. Then you come to something like this retreat, where you take yourself out of the structure of your life and come to life, and in this we come to the awareness that grace is present.<\/p>\n

Now the challenge always is to take this structure, this grace, back into the structure of your life back home. It will not fit. That\u2019s the law. You have to have the attitude of walking through the STRUCTURE living in the GRACE. That is where you\u2019re focusing your awareness, your attention. You practice focusing the awareness on the internal baby, the child, the divine being that you are. In your mind you can see it as a beautiful picture.<\/p>\n

Remember the little Gerber baby on the baby food jar? Look at all the women who are smiling, going, \u201cYeah, aaaaahhh.\u201d All the guys are going, \u201cWhat jar, what Gerber?\u201d You guys, think of when you sit up at the bar and they pour a beer for you, or bring you your pint of bitters. And now the women are going, \u201cBitters, you mean like lemon?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the attitude inside that you have to hold. It isn\u2019t necessarily a picture you have to hold; it\u2019s an attitude. The attitude is formed, the attitude is practiced, the attitude is incorporated into behavior, consciously doing that and practicing until the body mechanism takes over, and it incorporates as a habit.<\/p>\n

Then we start to walk through life not even knowing that we\u2019re really happy until people say, \u201cMy, you look happy!\u201d Then you may realize, \u201cI AM happy, and I\u2019m happy because I haven\u2019t had any of these other things that used to bother me.\u201d\u00a0 What other things? You could point them out — that, that, and that. So, you can still see them; they\u2019re still there. But they don\u2019t bother you because you don\u2019t focus on them.<\/p>\n

So, nothing leaves your life, per se. You haven\u2019t given up your mind, your experiences. You\u2019re not brainwashing yourself into some oblivion. You\u2019re focusing on what is really important to you. At some point, those other things were important to you because they had to be dealt with. Choosing certain lifestyles and behaviors makes you deal with certain things. And in choosing out of that lifestyle and behavior, you no longer have to deal with what came with it. But like all human beings, we tend to look back. And when we do, we can become paralyzed by what we see.<\/p>\n

Question:<\/p>\n

How do I know when looking back is learning and exploring patterns, so I don\u2019t choose those anymore?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

J-R:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You change your behavior. You look back to see something and change your behavior. If you look back to see something and you don\u2019t change your behavior, you\u2019re just looking back.<\/p>\n

Question:<\/p>\n

So, once I change my behavior, then I don\u2019t need to look back anymore? I can just go on?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

J-R:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You may never have to look back at it, or you may look just once in a while to see where it is. Like looking in the rear-view mirror of a car when you are driving. You look in the rear-view mirror as a reference point for where you are on the road, how far you\u2019ve come, and what\u2019s behind you. It is just information at that point. You are still present, in the car, moving forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is a Q&A from a sharing with John-Roger in October 1994. Question: I’m one of those people who has a tendency to make it tough to live in grace. Like, I work at it. I let go of a lot of things over the last couple of years that were keeping me living […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":112720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[266,260,262],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-john-rogers-current-story","category-traveler-q-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}