Monday, September 12, 2005

There But for the Grace of God Go I


These words first spoken by the martyr John Bradford in 1555. I had first heard these words when they were spoken by my mother. She had seen a lone hitch-hiker at a gas station in our little home town of Lordsburg in the northern part of the Sonoran desert. That hitch-hiker had the look of being on the road for several days and was now 150 miles from the next city looking for a ride, a lonelier situation would be hard to imagine.

Those words meaning were lost to me at the time (I was 13). Now (almost 40) their meaning has become clear when in my own experience I saw an example of what my mother saw so many years ago. It is God's Grace that keeps us just one step away from disaster, having been on both sides I can see how little of a distance it is to travel there.

Is it to be said then about those who are less fortunate have been removed from God's Grace? I think not but only that His Grace is magnified by such.

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