Moving My Cheese

Grace is a concept we've kind of trivialized.  We make it almost a passive thing, sort of like God pretending not to see our sin.  Or worse, we make it an obligation: we make an intellectual decision to have faith, obligating Him to show us grace.  But God's grace - the kind that saves sinners - is not passive.  It's haunting... unrelenting.  It doesn't allow us to hold onto life as we know it - and that's more than a little scary.

I heard a poem when I was in college, and it remains for me the best description of true grace.  Called, "The Hound of Heaven," it vividly describes an experience many of us can relate to (particularly in hindsight): running from God, trying to find any other option.  To which, of course, God does not reply... He simply continues His quiet, patient, unrelenting pursuit. 

God's grace is amazing precisely because He does not wait for us to decide to choose Him; He knows we will choose anything else so long as we can keep our pride intact.  His grace is amazing because - in spite of our repeated rejection of Him, our attempts to find any other thing that will substitute but leave us unchanged - He continues to pursue us. 

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;

  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

    Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

      Up vistaed hopes I sped;

      And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,

  From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

      

From The Hound of Heaven, by Francis Thompson

Labels: Redemption