Whole World In His Hands

“I just can’t catch a break,” he sighs, watching floodwaters climb five feet up the walls of his ruined home.

“I’ve got plenty of luck,” she weeps over the crumpled fender of her old Toyota. “It’s just all bad.”

The weary chorus of this world is a dirge about how little control we truly have. Medical bills crush us. Friendships we cherish grow distant and cold. The machines on which our lives depend break down with unnerving frequency. Those we love get sick and die.

Is any of this seen by Someone—anyone—who can do something about it?

To doubting, disheartened people just like us, the apostle Paul wrote one of history’s most radiant lines: “God’s Son was before all else, and by Him everything is held together” (Col. 1:17). With all their seeming randomness and pain, our lives and our futures are held in the embrace of One whose arms stretched wide for us from a broken tree: “God was pleased for Him to make peace by sacrificing His blood on the cross, so that all beings in heaven and on earth could be brought back to God” (v. 20).

“I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End,” Jesus said of Himself. Nothing escapes His notice. Nothing lies outside His control. Our pain is real—but it is temporary.

Hope endures. The grace of God outlasts our brokenness.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Gracefully Wrong

Most of us inherited a God no kinder than we were—a deity whose major role seemed meting out tough penalties for willful or impetuous mistakes.

Like primitive believers everywhere, we read His displeasure in thunderstorms, bruised knees, and lost puppies—for was there anything for which we weren’t somehow to blame?

So it is that finding grace is the great unlearning of our past, the sweet and joyful discovery that in Jesus, our sins aren’t being counted against us. What we sang in innocence was actually, fundamentally true: “Jesus loves me”—genuinely loves me. He can’t imagine a greater happiness than enjoying my trust and affection.

How glorious to have been wrong about it all—to celebrate the truth that undermines our youthful foolishness and fear. His perfect love still casts out fear, and makes us wise unto salvation.

By grace, our thinking—and our living—is renewed. So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Hide and Seek

Ever thought of running away from God?

Like naive children in moments of hot shame and brokenness, we imagine there’s some deeply-hidden spot where what we’ve done cannot be seen, where we can huddle with our guilt. Perhaps in some dark mountain cave. Perhaps beneath the blankets of our bed. Perhaps beneath the cellar stairs. 

But God—and grace—are inescapable, and our most private hiding spots are never hid from Him. The psalmist said it best: “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast” (Ps 139: 7-10).

Grace seeks us even when we’ve blown it big—to heal and forgive us, not in vengeance or to punish. We hide in foolishness and fear: God teases us into His light. And when we’re found, hot tears blend into easy, grateful smiles.

Be sensible: choose not to hide.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Visible Grace

Sometimes through the dust and smoke, we trace the features of a friend—someone whose rich, remembered kindness soothes the soul and calms the turbulence. We hold on to such people for good reason: they have held us—gripped us, even—when the world seemed topsy-turvy and every voice was loud.

They were—they are—God’s grace in human form, a bit of heaven lingering to give us hope and get us through. In some faint way, they call to mind the one Who came to live among us and be one with us: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us. . . . full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).

Friends hold us for a minute, or perhaps an hour: He holds us for eternity, and promises to never willingly let go. “Be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). Knowing how we doubt His love, Jesus repeatedly reminds us, “Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me” (Jn 15:15).

Grace visits us through selfless souls, and heals us through their acts of kindness. The God who motivates such generosity is no further from you than a friend who shares dark roads and waits with you for dawn’s first light.

So when you pray, thank God for friends who live His grace.

And stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Growing Faith in God

What is the speed of trust?

It’s an odd question, since rapid acceleration and safe, human connection seem antithetical—moving in opposite directions.

And there’s the point—and the reason we don’t attempt lasting friendships while driving Formula 1 cars, in the backstretch of an 800-meter race, or while racing each other to the top of the corporate ladder.

Speed implies competition, a desire to be better than the other. Trust cannot rush, for it unfolds only when our usual pride and combativeness have been set aside.

The God who inhabits a universe where stars collide and light itself moves at more than 670,000,000 miles per hour sent His Son to a tiny planet. He came to walk long, winding roads with us, start conversations in homes and at wells, and play with children. “Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being” (Phil 2:6-7).

There is no hurrying the pace of trust, and trust is the Father’s fondest hope for us. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph.2.8).

When we trust His grace, we give ourselves to the One who has loved us through all eternity.

Now stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Hero of the Story

We come naturally by our self-absorption. From our earliest moments, we’re congratulated for taking first steps, trying new foods, mastering new skills, for learning how to navigate the myriad complexities of an ever-widening world. The story is, and has always been, about us—our goals, our striving, our gaining, our getting.

But then one day the world refused to be our private oyster.  There was no pearl inside—just grit and sand and disappointment. And we began to long from somewhere deeper than the ocean floor for rescue from our pain, our foolishness, our disillusion with ourselves.

Enter the selfless hero who became one of us to teach us how to find the joy. The Pearl of great price offers each of us His priceless grace. In Jesus, we discover One who never disappoints, who never falls short of saving us, who never walks away in righteous indignation from our follies and our failures. He’s the friend who knows both when to speak and when to be silent, when to laugh and when to weep—the incomparable companion who merged His story with our own. “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

His gracious offer of relief and liberation alters every other storyline. And yes, this hero always gets the last word.

 So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Immensity of Grace

Grace isn’t fully knowable inside the monuments we’ve built. Our finest structures merely hint at what the Scriptures call the “breadth and length and height and depth” (Eph 3:18) of love the Father gives us.

Cathedral arches just suggest the soaring kindness of our God. Our well-stocked libraries of knowledge—comprehensively collected; exquisitely curated—tell but a fraction of the story, deeper than our minds can grasp and gentler than our hearts can feel.

Until you stand upon the ocean shore, calling actively to mind that all your sins have been cast into its depths when you believe in Jesus (Mic 7:19), you’ve only sampled moments of God’s grace.

Until you stare in wonder at a midnight sky replete with billions of star galaxies—unknown to us yet still within the orbit of God’s grace—you cannot grasp the promise made to Abraham, whose faith was counted righteousness: “I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore” (Gen 22:17).

We fall in awe before the love that wouldn’t let this planet go: “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” (John 3:16).

The impulse to adore the God whose love for us is infinite is one sure sign that grace has found a home in you.

So stay in it.

—Bill Knott

The Measure of Success

We dream of exploits that ensure our fame—of fortunes gained or mountains climbed or roles where we control the lives of other, lesser mortals. We gather things—disposables—to fill the hole made urgent by our angry greed.

But we would gladly trade them all to be two modest, undramatic things at once: both deeply loved and finally forgiven.

No accolades or billions earned will ever soothe a heart that can’t be reconciled. No power can heal the wound within unless it offers what no human skill can offer.

For these we need a Father’s “Welcome Home” embrace. For these we need the Sun of Righteousness to rise with healing in His wings (Mal 4:2). For these we need the Spirit’s gentle, unrelenting voice, reminding us of grace.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph 2:8-9).

When boasting wanes; when posing fades, there is no finer thing we do than give each other grace we have been given.

It’s time to reimagine your success. Be known for love.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Playful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

It’s every parent’s greatest joy to see a child at play—freely, joyously at play. And children—of whatever age—only play when they understand they’re safe—deeply, seriously safe.

We don’t play on battlefields, in lightning storms, or when we doubt we’ll ever see tomorrow. And so the God of Scripture frequently must wait until we’ve outlived our fears before we grasp the fullness of His affection. We spend a lifetime learning just how richly we are loved, and why our God is always murmuring, “Fear not.” “Be not afraid.” Or better yet, “You can stop being afraid now.”

Our Father is supremely patient, waiting for the day when we—at last—discover how kind He has always been, and grow accustomed to His goodness. “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you” (Isaiah 30:18).

Unwind the spool of anxious thoughts that keep you wondering if you are loved, if Jesus deeply values you. Your joy today will be in measure with your trust.

And stay in grace.
—Bill Knott

Healed on the Way

Learning grace is slow and hard the way recovery of any kind is usually slow and hard.

When a bone is broken or a muscle torn, no supply of godly wishing can speed the pace at which the healing happens. This moment’s not for optics, not for show: nothing less than patient, cellular recovery can make us whole again.

And so no project that contemplates the complete overhaul of our personal theology, the transformation of our hearts and minds, and the mending of our wounded relationships should be described as easy or expected in less than years or even decades. Hear the present, active tense of these amazing verbs:

“Bless the Lord, O my soul,
  and forget not all His benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
  who heals all your diseases, 

who redeems your life from the Pit,
  who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good as long as you live
  so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Psalm 103:2-5) 

We may sometimes be privileged to discern the day on which grace first began to heal us. But it will take millennia at least to help us comprehend the length and breadth and height and depth of grace beyond degree.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Why Grace Can Afford to Be Humble

Ah, to be the wounded one—the one who gets to be the powerful forgiver.  We covet this rare role because we’re usually more sinning than we’re sinned against.  And when it comes our turn to show the grace once given us, we linger with the choice, as if it were a heavy thing to pardon what’s been done.

We can’t, of course, refuse forgiveness outright:  Jesus tied our own forgiveness to the habit of forgiving.  But first, a little groveling, we say.  Some real contrition, perhaps a tear or ten.  Some promises to never—ever—injure us again.

And so we fall far short of grace.  We strike a lender’s bargain with the sinner:  pardon only if the penitent submits to our superiority.

But grace is always washing someone’s feet—abandoning all power in the goal to make the sinner whole.  We cannot—dare not—charge for what was freely offered us.  If it’s not free, then it’s not grace.

Remind yourself of how forgiveness made you valuable to you. 

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Forgiveness in Full Flower

“Forgive me,” we say flippantly, painting on a shallow smile, when we discover we are misaligned with someone greater or more powerful—someone who might make us hurt.

We view our error lightly—just a minor inconvenience—and we hope the one offended will quickly do the same. Why do the humbling work of owning all that happened and acknowledging its impact?

But true forgiveness is a thoughtful, time-intensive mercy—never rushed if genuine; never brushed away if real. Unless we face the injury we’ve caused, we ask for restoration without repentance, a mere smoothing of ruffled surfaces.  If the needed words are “I’m sorry that I hurt you,” or “I can see how I was wrong,” speak truthfully, and find the needed healing. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal 6:1-2).

And when we are the ones offended and it is our turn to forgive, we plant the seeds of our own future grudges if we pretend a painful hurt is only minor and dismissible. What goes unsaid is usually unforgiven as well. Both grace and truth are called for each time there is an injury.

Only those who know themselves forgiven by the One who was always “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) ever truly forgive another broken soul. Only in the field of grace can reconciliation blossom.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

First Light, Then Grace

Wherever grace is welcomed and received, joy follows, just as daylight follows dawn.

And so we can read backwards from so many grayed-out, joyless souls to learn how few have heard and loved and lived the gospel. All fearful, anxious following of Jesus—all dim preoccupation with the things we've done or left undone—reveals that we are still in darkness, wrestling with the shadows Jesus rose to vanquish. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5).

So hear the gospel chorus in the songbirds’ pre-dawn trilling, bringing light to weary souls—like yours: 

“Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,

  and thick darkness the peoples;

but the Lord will arise upon you,

  and His glory will be seen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1-2).

The Light of all the world invites you: be done with anxious, midnight brooding. The day that dawns is meant to be abundant and eternal, the endless morning of the Son.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Gotta Tell Somebody

In every soul who has ever been healed, conviction rises that they must tell the story of how God’s goodness rebuilt a broken body or a wounded spirit.

Bones got mended; diseases conquered; mobility advanced; relationships renewed. When grace restores what pain has taken,

“Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them” (Psalm 126:2).

We gladly own we couldn’t—didn’t—heal ourselves. No self-help remedies can knit the muscles of a heart—or reconcile two wounded hearts. Only a power outside ourselves—a love that will not let us go—would care enough to build our peace, to make us whole. And so the world daily echoes with the praise of those who once feared darkness and despair would be their final verdict: “O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever” (Psa 136:1).

So do not be surprised if you should feel like singing—if contagious joy spills on from you to half a dozen or a hundred. Your healing was for them as well as you. “You, God, have turned my mourning into dancing” (Psa 30:11).

Irrepressible—and irresistible—joy is the lasting legacy of grace.

Move in it. And stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Sweet Taste of Grace

My pride is stung. My spirit’s wounded. The untrue, unjust thing that someone said, that someone wrote, went viral with unheard-of speed, fanned on by evil angels.

And rising with the bitter righteousness of bile, the fantasy of sweet revenge becomes more urgent every hour. “Strike back!” say Truth and Justice. “Set the twisted record straight. Unmask the gossiper for who he is, for what she wrote. Redeem your ruined reputation.”

And then Grace whispers, “You have already been redeemed. Your reputation is the best that it could ever be because your life is hid with Christ in God. The pleasures of retaliation are nothing—meaningless—beside the joys of being both forgiven AND forgiving.”

Grace dulls our taste for vengefulness, and makes us hungry for the fullness of God’s joy. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22).

“Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps 34:8).

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Happily Surrendered

If you revisit all the beaches where you built sandcastles in the sun, chances are, you’ll never even find a one.   

The constant pull of wash and wave reduces all the outposts where we once asserted sovereignty. Our turrets and our towers, our moats and battlements have long since lost the struggle to insist on what was never really ours.  

And so it is as grace subdues the castles of our pride and self-assertion. The lovely, unrelenting rhythm of God’s kindness and His mercy overruns our fierce objections and erodes our staked positions. While we were sleeping at our stations, we were flooded by forgiveness, cracked and circled by repeated offers of redemption. And for many—all who acknowledge they are beaten—grace reclaims a life that always was the property of God.

Unless you build cement into your soul—unless you daily and deliberately refuse the pull of God’s unceasing love—you’ll yet surrender to the grace that outmaneuvers all our pride. With the apostle Paul, you’ll soon exclaim, “But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ” (1 Tim 1:13-14).

There is an hour for yielding crumbling fortresses to grace. Your hour has come. The tide is in.

Rejoice in what you used to fight.

And stay in grace.

 —Bill Knott

Hymn We Sing

It’s the most famous line ever written about grace by an author not recorded in God’s Word: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

Every week, around the globe, it’s sung and said uncounted times, bringing joy and certainty to billions of believers. Whole lives are built on this.

But the lived reality of grace requires that we move beyond the first person voice, and grasp our role within the choir. For while grace operates for each of us as individuals, we learn it by and through and with—and for—believers Christ in grace puts near us. “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).

We gather grace from gracious people. We forgive as we’re forgiven. We speak kindly when we listen to kind words. We risk embracing others when we’ve found the deep security of being gripped in love.

A solo Christian is theoretically possible but practically unheard of. God has ordained that all our growth in grace comes through the community of others. We’re taught; we stretch; we struggle; we discover among the others who are also on the journey. From them we gain what no one wretch might ever know:

“Amazing grace, no sweeter words
Were ever sung by choir;
From them we learn the lovely song,
The passion, and the fire.”

Now stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Forever Joy

Savoring the creamy richness of delectable milk chocolate.

Settling into the plush leather of a luxury car.

Dangling your feet in the stunningly blue water of a South Pacific lagoon.

What do these very different life experiences have in common? Each is richly imaged for us by adroit advertisers who correctly sense how desperately we seek relief from everyday hecticity.

We need something to break the cycle: we need a respite from the crushing stress.

But the Word of God reminds us that we manufacture most of all that pains us. “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Rom 3:23). Our essential uneasiness results from years of choosing the fleeting pleasures of this moment over the joys of God’s eternal friendship.

Is there a better answer than smooth chocolate, deep leather and Tahitian sunsets? “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). “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa 53:6).

Grace is an enduring delight because the Lord is risen. The pleasure of His freedom lasts forever.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

To Graciously Receive

What is it in our restless hearts that cannot graciously receive a gift?

A friend invites us to a grand, delightful meal, and even before dessert is served, we’re busy evening the score. We fail to taste the kindly moment because we’re painfully obsessed with making certain our account with one we call a friend is “balanced”—even though it is a dinner spread and not a spreadsheet gleaming in the candlelight.

And so we say to God when He so kindly offers us eternity through what His Son has sacrificed: “That’s truly nice—and in exchange I’ll do 10,000 good, obedient things that makes it seem I’m less in Your debt, and somehow more deserving.”

Grace wounds our pride by disallowing all our offers of equivalence. There is no service we can offer God that even starts to mitigate His gift. Our prayers, our gifts, our sweat, our pain do not begin to make us anything but debtors to the kindness we’ve been given. “In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

Grace teaches us the habit of receiving what we never can repay—of reveling in it, and telling strangers just how blessed we are.

A heartfelt “thank you” is the best response when offered joy, and peace, and freedom.

Then stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Welcoming Disruption

What makes the light of Easter last long past the hymns and lilies?

The ground beneath our feet has moved. The grim, unshaken certainties of loss and grief and toil and death have finally succumbed—and to such stunningly good news: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).

Our muddied tale of violence and pain has yielded in a burst of light that stubbornly rejects a fade: “Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and He was raised from the dead on the third day” (1 Cor 15:3-4).

Now dawns the interrupted life—the days when joy reclaims its missing hours. The resurrected Christ insists there’ll be a better, brighter finish to our story. We dare to laugh, to stretch, to love: not all things stay just as they were.

We reach for strangers, suddenly so confident that love will win when all is done. We dance with children in the puddles: the rain we used to curse now waters our new life. The sinews of our hope grow strong, resilient—able now to bear what yesterday we feared.

The Great Disrupter has arisen, and He is making all things new.

So rise and walk—and stay in grace.

—Bill Knott