deadlines

everyone expects a grace period--bills give you a grace period before the pentalty kicks in, teachers most often give grace for papers due, we all give ourselves grace on deadlines for cleaning the garge, loosing weight, walking regularly, giving up bad habits. has a programmer ever finished a major project on time exactly the way it was planned? has it always been thus or is it just our society? tried to impress yearbook staff of the importance of meeting deadline tuesday but didn't get book out till friday. they had other things. we all have other lives. still there are certain things that really do have a deadline. there are things that we need to be responsible for. the more i am around the students the more i see a lack of responsibility. who cares if i don't show up for work and the animals go hungry? if they have pets at home, it is probably mom taking care of it. what do we learn from having a grace period for everything? are we learning of God's grace? do we think that it will extend forever? is there grace for everything by everybody? or should it only be extended under special cercumstances? does God's grace have perameters? if it does is it grace?