The Bridge Both Ways

Ever since the Garden of Eden, men and women try to cover themselves with fig leaves. In our sin, in our shame, in our guilt, we try to hide from God and from one another. But God comes for us. God always comes for His people. This is His grace. His determination to find the lost, His eternal commitment to love the unlovely, to heal the broken, to put right what we have made wrong.

In other words, when you live in God’s world, every way you try to run away from God is always ultimately towards Him. Because the further you think you’ve gotten from Him is never enough to outrun His grace. But we do not all live in parallel universes, as though each of our lives is a single player game before God. This world is a multi-billion player game. And this means that if all paths are ultimately running towards God, all paths are ultimately converging. Jesus came to reconcile us to God and to one another. Jesus is the bridge both ways. And as God draws us ever closer to Himself, we find that as we look out the window at one another, our faces are getting closer.

But this also means that God’s grace is not limited to easy things, happy things. In this world made messy, in this broken world, in this sinful world, God’s grace even rides in the storm. His grace works through divorce. His grace works through wayward children. His grace works through the loss of health, the loss of jobs, the loss of friends, in the midst of our most supreme failures and weakness, even in death itself there God’s grace is often most evident. And you know this because your phone rings, because there’s a text, a card, an email, because there are flowers, because there are meals, because you are not alone. When you see the faces, when you hear the words, remember that only Jesus brings people together. And the only way closer together is closer to Him. Because He is our peace.