Teddy Bears and Grace

SOS hosts an angel-tree sort of gig every Christmas: our kids write down requests on angels and members of the community pick and fill the requests. This year, one little girl asked simply for a “Teddy Bear”—and someone bought her this. I think it’s the new visual in my mind of what it looks like to approach God’s throne with boldness, knowing He is bigger and better and stronger than anything we could ask for or imagine. That when we ask for teddy bears of regular size, He blows us away with the largest teddy bear that can be found.

I just finished The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning. In it, he writes, “Jesus Christ has irreparably changed the world. When preached purely, His Word exalts, frightens, shocks, and forces us to reassess our whole life. The Gospel breaks our train of thought, shatters our comfortable piety, and cracks open our capsule truths. The flashing spirit of Jesus Christ breaks new paths everywhere. His sentences stand like hovering swords of flame because He did not come to bring peace, but a revolution. The gospel is not a children’s fairy tale, but rather a cutting-edge, rolling-thunder, convulsive earthquake in the world of the human spirit.”

I’ve had multiple conversations with friends about God’s grace this semester, and each time we’ve arrived at this: that when we ask whether God’s grace will prove enough, we find it in abundance. When we question whether His love will stand constant enough, we find it more steadfast than anything for which we could ever hope. When we debate whether the gospel is redemptive enough, we find it “breaks new paths everywhere,” proves to be a “revolution.” God’s heart is radically beyond our wildest imagination, greatest dreams, biggest hopes. We crawl to God’s throne begging him for small grace and He lavishes it upon us. We come to Him searching for belonging, and He doesn’t just welcome us in--but adopts us as His children. We ask for small teddy bears: He stands ready with giant, impractical, ridiculous, huge ones. The “teddy bears” may not look like what we expect—but I believe that ultimately, because of eternity, all will be redeemed, made whole. We serve a giant-teddy-bear-giving God. What a God to serve.