If concerts lasted 60 days, the audience would be smaller than the band. If a book took 40 years to read, almost no one would ever finish it.

We want the distillation of a life, not the whole story. We’re looking for the summary, not the entire sermon. We’re addicted to the soundbite, not hours of video outtakes.

And so we speak of grace as an event, even a moment, that can be captured, imaged, even timed. “I got saved at 7:23 pm last Tuesday.” “God turned my life around in 20 minutes during lunch.”

Yet grace is frequently a long and gentle process in our lives—at least a season, often a decade, sometimes an orbit of 50 years. We celebrate the moment of insight; heaven counts the long and winding road that led to now—a thousand times the sad trajectory of our lives was turned so quietly by love.  “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).

The “grace that saved a wretch like me” is simply that moment we became aware of what God has been doing in our lives for seasons and for years. Grace is always present and continuous. Through Christ, we are both “saved” and “being saved,” for grace has no terminus—no end—for those who trust in Him.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott