No one can grasp the grace of God unless God teaches him, embraces him, and holds him in an unexpected kindness.
There’s no intellect so vast; there’s not a mystic so devout that he can plumb the depth of love by private contemplation.
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine” (Isa 55:8).
Only the mind of God could Father-forth the grace of God. Only the Son who fully knows God’s mind could satisfy His justice and still manifest His love. Only the Spirit, moving softly in our hearts, could teach us of the height, the depth, the breadth—the strength—of love that will not let us go.
The cleverest among us must learn: the genius must be taught. The keenest mind will still confess, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!”(Psa 139:6).
That’s why we linger on our knees. We bow before the mystery that always chooses to invite us, to correct us, to forgive us, and redeem us.
We marvel that God loves us when we’re broken—that He still seeks us when we run away. Like toddlers playing hide-and-seek, we are discovered in plain sight. There is no depth from which He cannot lift us, and no place He will not go.
We are amazed by grace we never fully understand.
But we receive. And stay in grace.
—Bill Knott