By: Casey Korstanje
“I believe grace is everywhere. It is all around us. If only we had the humility to acknowledge our need and take advantage of it.”
I wish I had said that.
It is a line offered by a minor character in a period rom/com which otherwise followed the cliche pattern of girl meets boy, they apparently dislike each other until they realize they are in love. Then there is a serious misunderstanding and… oh never mind, you know the rest.
There was one plot twist where the writers spring a wholly unsatisfying ending upon you (my wife protested immediately) before jumping ahead two years and making all things perfect again.
“Grace is everywhere. It is all around us.”
2 Corinthians 9:8–9 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (ESV)
Imagine: all sufficiency, in all things, at all times.
Of course, we declare that when Scripture uses the words “all things” it means exactly that. Good times, hard times, sickness and health, trials, tribulations, good things, bad things. “All things.”
I knew that, and yet I have discovered a new dimension to the meaning of God’s grace in “all things.” It apparently also includes when you get off track. Whether by sloth, fixing your eyes on your immediate circumstances, misunderstanding, falling into temptation and sin, or failing to live up to some self-contrived standard. When you spend your time in quiet desperation and shame.
I have discovered that when I fall into this error, the Lord lets me scrape along for a little while before He grabs my attention through some unlikely means. While I am hiding and sewing together fig leaves, suddenly He calls my name.
Let me give you one of those unlikely circumstances the Lord used to get my attention.
I was flicking through YouTube, a little bored, when I stumbled across a video of an Australian nun giving a lecture somewhere. I don’t know why I paused to listen, but I did.
She told a story about a sister who had gone to see an apparently renowned and very busy priest with the idea that he should become her spiritual director.
When the priest asked her why he should do so, she replied that she had spoken to Jesus and that Jesus had given her his name.
The priest, apparently not impressed, said “Sister, I want you to do something first. The next time you speak with Jesus ask Him to name the last sin I repented.”
She said she would do so.
When she returned, the priest asked if she had encountered Jesus again and asked the question.
“I did,” said the nun.
“So what did He say?”
“Jesus said he didn’t remember.”
I can’t tell you the effect that had on me. You know how you know a thing but, in fact, don’t?
I’ve read the verses:
Isaiah 43:25 “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. (ESV)
Hebrews 8:12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” (ESV)
Hebrews 10:17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” (ESV)
This idea that God doesn’t remember your sins if you repent is all over the Bible.
Micah 7:19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. (ESV)
Psalm 103:12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. (ESV)
Isaiah 38:17 Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back. (ESV)
To be fair, there will be some who counter that God does in fact remember all of your sins but doesn’t hold them against you.
Whatever. To me the phrase, “I will not remember your sins,” means “I will not remember your sins.”
And the Lord of Mercy knew I needed to think on that, to draw it into my life, to allow myself to realize God loves me, even me.
And when I did, the sunshine and fresh air of heaven itself blew through the cobwebs and melted the chains I had tethered to my heart by my own failings.
Here’s the thing. God found me while I was hiding.
Sometimes we can forget that the grace of God abounds in “all things at all times.”
If only we had the humility to acknowledge our need and take advantage of it.
Matthew 28:20 (b) And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (ESV)
