Grace has found me. Grace will lead me home. ~ Sarah Kelly
Sometimes I feel like a slow learner.
Do you ever feel like you just don’t quite grasp a concept? You read about it, talk, write, and pray about it, and you think you’ve got it all figured out, but then you look at your actions and thoughts and realize you just don’t really get it?
That’s how I feel right now about “grace.”
I’ve even written a book titled Relentless Grace, but I’m still not sure I truly have my mind around the notion of grace. I wonder if anyone does.
I listened recently as a wonderful singer, Sarah Kelly, offered her stylized version of “Amazing Grace” in worship. At one point in a quiet acoustic passage she sang, “Grace has found me. Grace will lead me home.”
Grace has found me. As she repeated the words, I suddenly realized that grace is much more than an abstract theological concept. I thought of these familiar passages from John 1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
He was in the world, and … the world did not recognize him.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Then later, Jesus proclaims, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14)
In that moment I understood a bit more fully that grace isn’t a thing or an idea. Grace IS Jesus, and Jesus IS grace.
I don’t receive grace like a wrapped gift—open the package and try it on, and now you’ve got grace. Grace doesn’t come to me like a spiritual pat on the head from God—here you go (tap-tap), now you’ve got grace.
Grace is a person who lives in my heart each moment. Grace comes to me in a personal, intimate relationship with Christ. I can’t talk and write and think my way to grace any more than I can talk and think and write my way to friendship. It’s a relationship thing.
And the amazing part of grace is that I don’t have to seek it or earn it. It’s a gift, freely given. I accept Jesus, I get grace. I think that’s what Sarah means when she sings, “Grace has found me.” We don’t find Jesus; He finds us, and He’ll never stop reaching out Him hands in love and grace.
Grace has found me.
Once you get the significance of that line, you can truly rest in the next one:
Grace will lead me home.
Do you struggle to live in the assurance that grace has found you and will lead you home?
Please leave a comment, visit my website, and/or send me an email at rich@richdixon.net.