Daily Word of Grace # 168 (November 5, 2020)
One of the most powerful moments of grace I ever experienced happened in my 8th grade Latin class. As we were conjugating verbs one day I was completely checked out, writing a gushing love letter (in the dark ages we did not have cell phones to text with) to the gorgeous brunette who sat in front of me. The muses were flowing and I wrote and wrote…until to my horror I realized our Latin teacher was standing right next to me (I only noticed because there was loud laughter from the rest of the class…apparently he had been standing there for some time). His hand was outstretched, “Give me the note please.” I turned purple with embarrassment not only because I was caught but also because his policy was to read aloud to the class any note he caught someone writing. I braced for it…but to my stunned relief he read it silently to himself, folded it up and put it in his pocket. “Please pay attention, Dave” was all he said. That was it. I was SO relieved, I would have conjugated a thousand verbs for him. Scripture tells us that “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Thankfully, that is exactly what God does for us, even at the cost of the blood of Jesus Christ. In other words, rather than embarrassing us with our sins in front of others, God simply folds them up, puts them in his pocket, and asks us to pay attention—which means the gospel of God’s forgiving love is always a word of relief.
Love and Prayers,
Dave