What is the speed of trust?

It’s an odd question, since rapid acceleration and safe, human connection seem antithetical—moving in opposite directions.

And there’s the point—and the reason we don’t attempt lasting friendships while driving Formula 1 cars, in the backstretch of an 800-meter race, or while racing each other to the top of the corporate ladder.

Speed implies competition, a desire to be better than the other. Trust cannot rush, for it unfolds only when our usual pride and combativeness have been set aside.

The God who inhabits a universe where stars collide and light itself moves at more than 670,000,000 miles per hour sent His Son to a tiny planet. He came to walk long, winding roads with us, start conversations in homes and at wells, and play with children. “Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being” (Phil 2:6-7).

There is no hurrying the pace of trust, and trust is the Father’s fondest hope for us. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph.2.8).

When we trust His grace, we give ourselves to the One who has loved us through all eternity.

Now stay in grace. -Bill Knott

We come naturally by our self-absorption. From our earliest moments, we’re congratulated for taking first steps, trying new foods, mastering new skills, for learning how to navigate the myriad complexities of an ever-widening world. The story is, and has always been, about us—our goals, our striving, our gaining, our getting.

But then one day the world refused to be our private oyster.  There was no pearl inside—just grit and sand and disappointment. And we began to long from somewhere deeper than the ocean floor for rescue from our pain, our foolishness, our disillusion with ourselves.

Enter the selfless hero who became one of us to teach us how to find the joy. The Pearl of great price offers each of us His priceless grace. In Jesus, we discover One who never disappoints, who never falls short of saving us, who never walks away in righteous indignation from our follies and our failures. He’s the friend who knows both when to speak and when to be silent, when to laugh and when to weep—the incomparable companion who merged His story with our own. “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

His gracious offer of relief and liberation alters every other storyline. And yes, this hero always gets the last word.

 So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

Grace isn’t fully knowable inside the monuments we’ve built. Our finest structures merely hint at what the Scriptures call the “breadth and length and height and depth” (Eph 3:18) of love the Father gives us.

Cathedral arches just suggest the soaring kindness of our God. Our well-stocked libraries of knowledge—comprehensively collected; exquisitely curated—tell but a fraction of the story, deeper than our minds can grasp and gentler than our hearts can feel.

Until you stand upon the ocean shore, calling actively to mind that all your sins have been cast into its depths when you believe in Jesus (Mic 7:19), you’ve only sampled moments of God’s grace.

Until you stare in wonder at a midnight sky replete with billions of star galaxies—unknown to us yet still within the orbit of God’s grace—you cannot grasp the promise made to Abraham, whose faith was counted righteousness: “I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore” (Gen 22:17).

We fall in awe before the love that wouldn’t let this planet go: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). 

The impulse to adore the God whose love for us is infinite is one sure sign that grace has found a home in you.

So stay in it. -Bill Knott

We dream of exploits that ensure our fame—of fortunes gained or mountains climbed or roles where we control the lives of other, lesser mortals. We gather things—disposables—to fill the hole made urgent by our angry greed.

But we would gladly trade them all to be two modest, undramatic things at once: both deeply loved and finally forgiven.

No accolades or billions earned will ever soothe a heart that can’t be reconciled. No power can heal the wound within unless it offers what no human skill can offer.

For these we need a Father’s “Welcome Home” embrace. For these we need the Sun of Righteousness to rise with healing in His wings (Mal 4:2). For these we need the Spirit’s gentle, unrelenting voice, reminding us of grace.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph 2:8-9).

When boasting wanes; when posing fades, there is no finer thing we do than give each other grace we have been given.

It’s time to reimagine your success. Be known for love.

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

It’s every parent’s greatest joy to see a child at play—freely, joyously at play. And children—of whatever age—only play when they understand they’re safe—deeply, seriously safe.

We don’t play on battlefields, in lightning storms, or when we doubt we’ll ever see tomorrow. And so the God of Scripture frequently must wait until we’ve outlived our fears before we grasp the fullness of His affection. We spend a lifetime learning just how richly we are loved, and why our God is always murmuring, “Fear not.” “Be not afraid.” Or better yet, “You can stop being afraid now.”

Our Father is supremely patient, waiting for the day when we—at last—discover how kind He has always been, and grow accustomed to His goodness. “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you” (Isaiah 30:18).

Unwind the spool of anxious thoughts that keep you wondering if you are loved, if Jesus deeply values you. Your joy today will be in measure with your trust.

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

HEALED ON THE WAY

Learning grace is slow and hard the way recovery of any kind is usually slow and hard.

When a bone is broken or a muscle torn, no supply of godly wishing can speed the pace at which the healing happens. This moment’s not for optics, not for show: nothing less than patient, cellular recovery can make us whole again.

And so no project that contemplates the complete overhaul of our personal theology, the transformation of our hearts and minds, and the mending of our wounded relationships should be described as easy or expected in less than years or even decades. Hear the present, active tense of these amazing verbs:

“Bless the Lord, O my soul,

who redeems your life from the Pit,

We may sometimes be privileged to discern the day on which grace first began to heal us. But it will take millennia at least to help us comprehend the length and breadth and height and depth of grace beyond degree.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

Ah, to be the wounded one—the one who gets to be the powerful forgiver.  We covet this rare role because we’re usually more sinning than we’re sinned against.  And when it comes our turn to show the grace once given us, we linger with the choice, as if it were a heavy thing to pardon what’s been done.

We can’t, of course, refuse forgiveness outright:  Jesus tied our own forgiveness to the habit of forgiving.  But first, a little groveling, we say.  Some real contrition, perhaps a tear or ten.  Some promises to never—ever—injure us again.

And so we fall far short of grace.  We strike a lender’s bargain with the sinner:  pardon only if the penitent submits to our superiority.

But grace is always washinbg someone’s feet—abandoning all power in the goal to make the sinner whole.  We cannot—dare not—charge for what was freely offered us.  If it’s not free, then it’s not grace.

Remind yourself of how forgiveness made you valuable to you. 

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

“Forgive me,” we say flippantly, painting on a shallow smile, when we discover we are misaligned with someone greater or more powerful—someone who might make us hurt.

We view our error lightly—just a minor inconvenience—and we hope the one offended will quickly do the same. Why do the humbling work of owning all that happened and acknowledging its impact?

But true forgiveness is a thoughtful, time-intensive mercy—never rushed if genuine; never brushed away if real. Unless we face the injury we’ve caused, we ask for restoration without repentance, a mere smoothing of ruffled surfaces.  If the needed words are “I’m sorry that I hurt you,” or “I can see how I was wrong,” speak truthfully, and find the needed healing. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal 6:1-2).

And when we are the ones offended and it is our turn to forgive, we plant the seeds of our own future grudges if we pretend a painful hurt is only minor and dismissible. What goes unsaid is usually unforgiven as well. Both grace and truth are called for each time there is an injury.

Only those who know themselves forgiven by the One who was always “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) ever truly forgive another broken soul. Only in the field of grace can reconciliation blossom.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

Wherever grace is welcomed and received, joy follows, just as daylight follows dawn.

And so we can read backwards from so many grayed-out, joyless souls to learn how few have heard and loved and lived the gospel. All fearful, anxious following of Jesus—all dim preoccupation with the things we've done or left undone—reveals that we are still in darkness, wrestling with the shadows Jesus rose to vanquish. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5).

So hear the gospel chorus in the songbirds’ pre-dawn trilling, bringing light to weary souls—like yours:

“Arise, shine; for your light has come,


  and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,


  and thick darkness the peoples;


but the Lord will arise upon you,


  and His glory will be seen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1-2).

The Light of all the world invites you: be done with anxious, midnight brooding. The day that dawns is meant to be abundant and eternal, the endless morning of the Son.

And stay in grace. – Bill Knott

In every soul who has ever been healed, conviction rises that they must tell the story of how God’s goodness rebuilt a broken body or a wounded spirit. 

Bones got mended; diseases conquered; mobility advanced; relationships renewed. When grace restores what pain has taken, “Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

and our tongue with shouts of joy;

then it was said among the nations,

“The Lord has done great things for them” (Psalm 126:2). 

We gladly own we couldn’t—didn’t—heal ourselves. No self-help remedies can knit the muscles of a heart—or reconcile two wounded hearts. Only a power outside ourselves—a love that will not let us go—would care enough to build our peace, to make us whole. And so the world daily echoes with the praise of those who once feared darkness and despair would be their final verdict: “O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever” (Psa 136:1).

So do not be surprised if you should feel like singing—if contagious joy spills on from you to half a dozen or a hundred. Your healing was for them as well as you. “You, God, have turned my mourning into dancing” (Psa 30:11). 

Irrepressible—and irresistible—joy is the lasting legacy of grace. 

Move in it. And stay in it. – Bill Knott