We are not starting from a place of being entirely OK.

We have been soiled by our choices, wounded by our transgressions, compromised by our surroundings, oppressed by our conflicts, and damaged by life itself.

We have responded badly sometimes. We have acted out of our pain and distortion of reality. We jerked our knees. We have spewed the venom that was spewed upon us.

We have been judged by our own harsh judgment.

We have deluded ourselves into believing that we carry no fault, blame, or responsibility for how we have thought and behaved.

We see no relationship, in our addictive blindness, between our persistent choices and our consistent consequences.

We swim in the river of denial cursing the God of heaven rather than changing our course to float with the flow of grace. How odd.

“ … People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.”

(Revelation 16:10–11 ESV)

But for grace, I’d have no place to stand, no way to live, no heart to beat, no eyes to see, no hope to continue, no mercy to erase the face of disgrace.

My own stubborn insistence upon my way and my view of all that I think I see is clouded by dust and polluted by every attitude I have acquired in the dungeon of shame. I am swimming in a consequential pool of arrogance.

I need a taste of grace.

I need a fountain of its sweet refreshment.

I am sometimes afraid of judgment, but judgment is what brings salvation. We plead with God to judge so that we may be saved.

“From heaven you pronounced judgment; the earth was afraid and was still; “When God rose up to judgment and to save all the oppressed of the earth.”

• Excerpted from Psalm 76

We desire, deeply, to swim in the deeper depths of the river of justice or the river of grace, or the river of love, or the river of peace. We soon discover that it is one river from one source.

We dive in.

Grace is a big river. It can accommodate the masses. It is best enjoyed when all are included.

So, we gather.

Our individualized shame and sorrow become a shared shame and sorrow. Our joy and hopes, likewise, come together. We are a community of swimmers splashing around in communal joy.

We are earthbound for the time being and we are knit together in a common destiny and a common humanity. We cannot separate the earth from Heaven or the material from the spiritual.

Everything is fully engaged in our experience.

We cannot receive grace without giving grace. The same is true for peace, love, justice, forgiveness, and compassion.

The fight for love, peace, and justice is not just a human battle. It is a spiritual conflict. We may feel alone, abandoned, and misunderstood, but far more is going on than meets the eye. God has us all and all things in His hands. Do your part and trust God.

We are all together, climbing a stairway to Heaven.

The good news is that God is present and involved in the process. The transcendent God is among us. The far-off, unreachable, undefinable, non-corporeal, sovereign God of creation is resurrected flesh and spirit living in temples not made with hands, in tents that are pitched on this planet and any other planet that he desires to inhabit.

God is everywhere.

God holds everything together.

“All things are your servants.”- Psalm 119:91b

All things … all people … all ideas … all truths … all atomic relationships and realities … every universe of energy, matter, or thought …. everything … all things.

God’s grace resolves the unresolvable. It forgives the unforgivable. It restores what is permanently damaged. It overcomes our resistance, denial, and refusal. God’s eternal grace triumphs over every temporal act of defiance.

Grace triumphs.