Truly Amazing Grace

Timothy Paul Jones in his book, Proof writes about his middle daughter who had been previously adopted by another family. He was sure this couple had the best of intentions, but they never quite integrated the adopted child into their family of biological children. For one reason or another, whenever they vacationed at Disney World, they took their biological children with them, but left their adopted daughter with a family friend. Usually, at least in the child’s mind, this happened because she did something wrong that precluded her presence on the trip. After a couple of rough years, they dissolved the adoption, and Timothy and his wife ended up welcoming an 8-year-old girl into our home. And so, by the time they adopted her, she had seen many pictures of Disney World and had heard about the rides, the characters and the parades. But when it came to passing through the gates of the Magic Kingdom, she had always been the one left on the outside. Once he found out about this, Timothy made plans to take her to Disney World. He announced the trip but what he didn’t expect was that the prospect of visiting Disney would produce a stream of downright devilish behavior in his newest daughter. In the month leading up to their trip to Magic Kingdom, she stole food, she lied, and she whispered insults carefully crafted to hurt her older sister as deeply as possible. And as the days on the calendar moved closer to the trip, her mutinies multiplied.

A couple of days before the trip, Timothy pulled his daughter into his lap to talk through her latest escapade. “I know what you’re going to do,” she stated flatly. “You’re not going to take me to Disney World, are you?” Suddenly, her downward spiral started to make some sense. She knew she couldn’t earn her way into the Magic Kingdom — she had tried and failed that test several times before — so she was living in a way that placed her as far as possible from the most magical place on earth. And so he asked her, “Is this trip something we’re doing as a family?” She nodded, brown eyes wide and tear-rimmed. “Are you part of this family?” She nodded again. “Then you’re going with us. Sure, there may be some consequences to help you remember what’s right and what’s wrong — but you’re part of our family, and we’re not leaving you behind.” Despite this conversation of reassurance, her behavior didn’t improve, it pretty much spiraled out of control, even at every hotel and rest stop on the way to Disney World. Still, they headed to Disney World on the day they had promised, and it was a typical Disney day. Overpriced tickets, overpriced meals, and lots of lines, mingled with lots Disney magic.

In their hotel room that evening, a very different child emerged. She was exhausted, pensive, and a little weepy at times, but her month-long facade of rebellion had faded. When bedtime rolled around, he prayed with her, held her, and asked, “So how was your first day at Disney World?” She closed her eyes and snuggled down into her stuffed unicorn. After a few moments, she opened her eyes ever so slightly and said, “Daddy, I finally got to go to Disney World. But it wasn’t because I was good; it’s because I’m yours.”

And then he writes, “That’s the message of outrageous grace. Outrageous grace isn’t a favor you can achieve by being good; it’s the gift you receive by being God’s. Outrageous grace is God’s goodness that comes looking for you when you have nothing but a middle finger flipped in the face of God to offer in return….It’s one-way love that calls you into the kingdom not because you’ve been good but because God has chosen you and made you his own. And now he is chasing you to the ends of the earth to keep you as his child, and nothing in heaven or hell can ever stop him…But here’s what’s amazing about God’s outrageous grace: This isn’t merely what God the Father would do; it’s what he did do. God could have chosen to save anyone, everyone, or no one from Adam’s fallen race. But what God did was to choose a multi-hued multitude of “someones,” and….declared over you, ‘I could have chosen anyone in the whole world as my child, and I chose you. No matter what you say or do, neither my love nor my choice will ever change.’ That’s grace that’s truly amazing.”