A husband slipping in the door with a bouquet of red roses trailing behind him.

A six year-old artfully arranging the remaining cookies in the jar to make it seem none have been taken.

A believer creeping quietly to church to sit in the back row and promise years of future faithfulness.

In our core, we hope to somehow appease those we have offended. We bring gifts; we rearrange the facts to diminish our responsibility; we promise to be better in the future. We assume that we won’t be welcome as we are.

But when we meet the God whose rightful expectations we have most offended, He is nothing like the angry deity we expected. “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. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him” (John 3:16-17).

This is the mystery of grace—that God doesn’t act on impulse or through vengeance, but plans to actively restore those whom sin and pride have separated from Him.  “God, in His grace, freely makes us right in His sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins” (Rom 3:24).

We are amazed: we do not understand.  It’s not what we would have done to those who offended us. But then, God says of Himself: “For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isa 55:9).

Grace restores what we can’t fix, and renews our lifeline to the God who deeply loves us.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott