Out of Our Hands Entirely

“We are afraid of grace getting carried away, and so we want to slap some conditions on it . . . Grace has a backbone and knows how to define itself. Grace is not the word that we are to use as the ‘open, sesame’ of the Church. Grace is not something we do. Grace is not something we can control. Grace is not something we can manage. And this means that we in the Church need to recognize that the guardians of grace are frequently its most dangerous enemies. Grace is God’s declared intention of favor for the whole world, whether we like it or not” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 67).