Can’t stop this.
Grace, the God kind. You can divert it, deflect it, dodge it, even ignore it. You can’t stop it. It’s as much a part of God as light. Grace – God’s grace – is as limitless as Eternity.
When I was in the third or fourth grade we lived for a short time at the end of a little country lane back behind Buck’s Corner. I’m sure it was a rental, but that never mattered to me. What did was the little bit of pasture where the landlord’s cow lived; for back at the far end was a small irrigation ditch. I put up with caring-for-the-cow chores so I had access to that ditch.
Water skippers, crawdads, cool, flowing water, rolled-up pants legs and bare feet . . . to a kid, is there anything better?
That little ditch in an obscure, now-changed-and-gone spot in eastern Oregon was my first introduction to how Grace is.
There was a cement diversion gate into which a weathered piece of thick plywood could be shoved to get water to the pasture – and our garden. My dad told me to leave it alone because the flow was too strong for me to get the plywood back out and I’d flood the garden.
You see where this is going.
Grace is like that. We’re saved by it (Ephesians 2:8). We love one another through it. We share in it together (Philippians 1:7). It gives us strength and we grow in it (2 Timothy 2:1, 2 Peter 3:18). God’s grace is the mending glue for broken hearts, broken lives, broken dreams. It’s His grace, continuously and effortlessly flowing from God’s very presence (Hebrews 4:16) that gives you and I, fellow believer, what it takes to carry on.
Absorb this lyric by Matt West . . .
And they’re fighting for a sacred space
But I’m living proof
Grace wins every time
Now I’m rising up in victory
Singing hallelujah
Grace wins every time
When mercy floods a thirsty soul
A broken side begins to heal
And grace returns what guilt has stole . . .
For the prodigal son, grace wins
For the woman at the well, grace wins
For the blind man and the beggar, grace wins
For always and forever, grace wins
For the lost out on the street, grace wins
For the worst part of you and me, grace wins
For the thief on the cross, grace wins
For a world that is lost, grace wins!
