A Conspiracy of Grace

Mike Yaconelli, in his book Messy Spirituality relates the following story that I think illustrates what God is doing in what Yaconelli calls “a conspiracy of grace.”

Little league baseball can be a brutal sport, especially for nine-and ten-year-olds who compete in national tournaments. It was the area Little League championship game. The stands were packed with families of each of the players. One young man brought his mother and father, both grandparents, and three uncles and aunts to watch him play.

The bottom of the seventh-inning was a nail-biter. The other team was ahead by one run, the bases were loaded, two outs, and the little boy with the large family was up to bat. If he made an out, the game would be over and his team would lose. If he walked or hit the ball, he would be the hero of the game. He swung at the first pitch and missed.

“Strike one!” the umpire yelled.

The families from the other team cheered, but his family cheered even louder. “It’s okay, Carl. No problem. You almost hit the ball! Now clobber the next pitch!”

“Strike two!” the umpire yelled after the next pitch.

Pandemonium broke out. Both teams and their families were yelling back and forth at each other. Carl’s family and team was encouraging him; the players and families of the other team were taunting. It was so loud no one could even hear themselves think.

Wrinkles appeared on the nine-year-old’s forehead as he waited for the next pitch. As the ball left the pitcher’s hand, it became very quiet. The ball sped towards Carl. It seemed like it took forever to cross the plate, but cross the plate it did, and Carl swung with all his might.

“Strike Three—You’re OUT!”

Not only was Carl out, the game was over. And he was the cause of the loss.

The winning team went crazy, their families swarmed onto the field, and everyone was dancing, laughing, cheering and celebrating. Except Carl’s team. As Carl’s team walked off the field, dejected, they mingled with their families and headed back to their cars in silence.

Except for Carl. Carl was still standing at home plate, devastated, alone, his head down in disgrace.

Suddenly someone yelled, “Ok, Carl, play ball!” Startled, Carl looked up to see his family spread out over the field. Grandpa was pitching, Dad was catching, mom was at first base, Uncle David at second, and the rest of the family had covered the other positions.

“Come on Carl, pick up the bat. Grandpa’s pitching.”
Bewildered, Carl slowly picked up the bat and swung at Grandpa’s first pitch. He missed, and he missed the next six pitches as well. But on the seventh pitch, determined to get a hit, Carl smacked the ball to left field. His aunt ran, picked up the ball in plenty of time, but the first baseman, Mom, must have lost the ball in the sun, because it went right through her hands into the dugout. “Run!” everyone yelled.

As Carl was running to second, the first baseman recovered the ball and threw it. Amazingly, Uncle David was blinded by the sun as well. “Keep running!” yelled someone, and Carl headed for third, where the throw went at least two feet over the head of the third baseman. “Keep running, Carl!” and Carl raced for home, running as hard as he had ever run. The ball was thrown with deadly accuracy as the catcher, Dad, blocking home plate, waited to tag him out, but just as Carl reached home plate, the ball bounced in and out of the catcher’s mitt, and Carl was safe!

Before he knew what happened, Carl found himself being carried around on Uncle Dave’s shoulders while the rest of the family crowded around cheering Carl’s name.
One person who was watching this amazing event commented to a friend, “I watched a little boy fall victim to a conspiracy of grace!”

Carl, the loser—the one who struck out, failed his team, disappointed his family—went from loser to hero. Carl, who would have been left with that awful memory of failure, was instead given a memory of grace, love and acceptance. He heard God’s Love song.

Just like a certain woman at the well. Just like the disciples, or the lame or the blind or those with leprosy. And God continues to sing that same song to you and I today.

Through people who show us a conspiracy of grace. Through family members who hold us in our darkest hours. Through scripture and sunsets. Through prayers and petitions on our behalf. God continues to sing His love song to you and to me. “It’s alright. I’m here…and I love you more than you will ever know. I’ve forgiven you already through the blood of my sacrifice, so whatever it is, confess it and let’s move on. I want to make you whole and happy and free. I want you truly know Love at its’ deepest level. I want you to know Me.”

All that’s left to do now, is respond.

Allowing God's Love Song to Dissolve Your Past

Haunted by your past?  Can't seem to shake it?  You aren't alone, you know.  It's  happened before.

Go to the well of Samaria in John 4 and see the search of a woman trying to escape her past and hear the Song of God's Love in response to her life. Religion has told the Samaritan woman about the possibility of a Messiah, and then she meets the real Messiah, who immediately recognizes her thirst and offers her the living water of His grace.

What this woman expects from the Messiah is a lengthy critique of her life, or an enlightening lecture on what she should do or a justifiable reminder of the consequences of her destructive choices on others. What she receives instead is compassion, gentleness, kindness and a way out of the ruins of her life. She hears God’s love song for her. Jesus goes straight for her longings, finds them and, in the process finds her. And in so doing, His love song liberates her from her past.

After her conversation with Jesus, the woman at the well is just beginning a whole new way of living, but none of the facts of her life have changed! She is still living with a man who is not her husband. She still has been divorced 5 times. Her reputation is still a disaster. Jesus often told people not to tell anyone what He had done for them, but not this woman.

Her faith is only a few minutes old and already she becomes an evangelist with a huge impact on her community. What does she say? Not much. “Uh….come see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.” Everyone in town knows what this woman has done. Big deal. What she says is not the point. The fact that she can talk about her shameful past publicly is what grabs their attention.

Her words are few and seemingly insignificant, but her saying them is very significant. In effect she says, “I know you know who I am, but I just met a person who liberated me from my past, my reputation, and I am no longer the person you think I am. I am no longer hostage to my bad choices. I am free!”

Still, nothing has changed. But everything has changed. Her neighbors can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes. Her words are all they need to race to the man she describes. For reasons they don’t understand, who this woman is now seems more relevant than who she was then.

The implications for us are almost overwhelming. Those of us who want to move on from our past, those who have come to the end of the road, can start with our unchanged life, now. We don’t have to wait until we are “mature.” We don’t have to move to a new town or convince others we are serious; we simply start. We begin. We hear God’s Love Song and respond. We take the first bumbling, stumbling, teetering steps toward the spiritual life, even if we are not very good at it.

What a gift of God.  To leave the past in the past.  And as we continue to tune into the Song of Love and allow it to permeate our guilt-ridden hearts, our very lives begin to change and a daily new beginning will allow that past to melt into the story of our lives, where it has meaning and significance but no power to harm us anymore.  It simply is the setting to show off still another example of God's Amazing Grace.

The Deck Chairs of Life...

One of my favorite Peanuts cartoons starts with Lucy sitting in her five-cent psychology booth, where Charlie Brown has stopped for advice about life.

“Life is like a deck chair, Charlie Brown,” she says. “On the cruise ship of life, some people place their deck chair at the rear of the ship so they can see where they have been. Others place their deck chair at the front of the ship so they can see where they are going.” The good “doctor” looks at her puzzled client and asks, “Which way is your deck chair facing, Charlie Brown?”

Without hesitating, Charlie replies glumly, “I can’t even get my deck chair unfolded.”

Mike Yaconelli, in his book Messy Spirituality asked, "Ever felt like that? I know the feeling—especially in the spiritual walk. Everywhere I look on the cruise ship of Christianity, I see a crew of instructors, teachers, experts and gurus eager to explain God’s placement of my deck chair, but I still can’t seem to get it unfolded. No wonder when I check out the titles in a Christian bookstore, I feel like I am the only klutz in the Kingdom of God, a spiritual fool lost in a ship full of brilliant biblical thinkers, an ungodly midget in a world of spiritual giants. When I compare my life with the experts in the church, I feel sloppy and messed up in a world of immaculately dressed saints…and I’m a minister!"

Can you relate? What happens when you feel like you can’t even get your deck chair open? You long for a deeper relationship with God, you seek it, but your spiritual growth chart looks more like a kindergartners scribbles than an upward line towards God.

Or perhaps there was a time when you were going pretty good in your spiritual walk, but something huge happened and it sent you reeling. A death in the family. A divorce. An unplanned pregnancy outside of marriage. An abortion. One moment you were happily walking down the beach enjoying the view, and the next you are rolling over and over in the surf trying to get your feet back under you, a hapless victim of one of Satan’s sneaker waves that suddenly lashed out and knocked you over and then began pulling you out to sea. And you go from worrying about getting your deck chair unfolded to just wishing there were a life raft somewhere. Forget about which way you face the chair.

Do any of you know what I’m talking about here? There are times in our spiritual walk where things don’t seem so spiritual. There are times when our own messy spirituality seems to get in the way of our walk with God, causing us to question whether or not we really even know Him.

Times when you call out, but God seems so silent or distant. Times when you can’t hear the music of your soul, anymore. Times when you wish you could do better in your spiritual walk, yet lured away and enticed by your own evil desires, you end up messing up again and again, and the persistent call of the devil to just give up and be swept out to drown in a sea of despair washes over you and everything within you wants to stop trying to reach the shore and simply go with the pull of the world. It all feels so useless and pointless…and yet, in the midst of all of the pounding surf rolling us over and over, listen carefully, and you will hear a song that breathes hope. It is not a loud, raucous song. Rather it is a simple, yet persistent song of love that is meant to bring the hearer courage and hope.

It is when you feel the most hopeless, and at your weakest that God sings His song of Love to you. Actually, God is always singing His love to you, but it seems we have to be down and out before we really hear it.

But know this…No matter what you are facing, in whatever situation you find yourself, God’s Love Song will reach your need. He sings it in many situations. He does it in all sorts of ways, but the message is always the same. God loves you and wants the best for you, no matter what you’ve done or where you find yourself.  Will you let yourself believe that and rest in it today?