Crisscrossing Grace

I kept crisscrossing God’s grace for years without recognizing it for what it was.

I didn’t believe God cared.

I believed in bootstrapping effort.

I believed in coincidental circumstances.

I believed in a world where abandonment and rejection was the rule not the exception.

But a God of loving grace?

I couldn’t relate to the concept.

Too many things had happened. Bad things. Unfair stuff, that left me believing that the only one I could really count on in this life, was me.

Which meant I was in real trouble!

It was only after I returned to God (very reluctantly I might add) but still a returnee trying to figure this “God-thing” out, that I realized and started recognizing that Grace had been crisscrossing my life for quite some time.

I just hadn’t had the trusting eyes I needed to see it.

I believe that’s God M.O.

There is a song I love called, Reckless Love.

The lyrics speak about God’s kindness; His overwhelming love even when we are walking away from Him.

Long before we understand what is happening, and what God is up to in our lives, His love is faithfully working. Turning us here. Erecting a protective hedge there. Opening and closing doors. Taking our lives in paths He wants us to find.

God is not only reckless in His love for us, He is absolutely relentless in His pursuit that we should come know Him, and come to recognize that love. How it operates. How it overcomes any obstacle.

Most of the time we “see God” through our circumstances. And, we interpret His love for us, by those circumstances.

We misconstrue our calamities as the irrefutable evidence of His uncaring.

In my case, I kept crisscrossing Grace without understanding that He, (by His Holy Spirit) had been there all along—intersecting my life—and moving me towards that day when I would be able to see Him in it all! The good things and the bad. The ruins and the wreckage, as well as the triumphs and the trophies.

Ravi Zacharias said, “I thank the Lord that, even though things were so wrong in my life here, I finally was brought to the realization of what all those struggles were about. There are some wonderful things from your painful past, things with a beauty you may not have realized at the time.”

Such is the relentless love of God!

He is totally unintimidated by our blind unbelief. And, He is unswerving in His purposes toward us. Have not the slightest doubt. If the “hounds of heaven” are in pursuit? In the end? You shall be captured by that Grace!

(I know—because, I was.)

And, I am forever thankful, that The Wild Lion ran me down.

For I shall need all of eternity to express my desperate gratitude!

“Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’ Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.”