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When a baby is born, all it knows is the warmth and security of its womb, but suddenly it has a whole new universe to understand. From inside its basinet, the world appears to be inhabited by giants, which loom over the sky and smile down, but soon the baby knows there is a room around its bed, and that room is just one of many. When the child begins to walk it discovers the house, and the house next door. In time it learns about the town, the city, the land, and the globe. It learns that Earth is just an infinitesimal speck in a limitless universe and that Man is still reaching out, trying to understand his place in a thing so big he cannot measure it.
The same thing has happened at the other end of the scale. When atoms were discovered, it seemed that all material things were made of invisible 'dots? of energy, but then subatomic particles were identified. Now the list of parts discovered in the atom is quite large, and a new possibility has emerged, called 'string theory?. And just when it looked like this was the end of discovery in this area, ?quantum physics? appeared. The funny thing is, if anyone says they understand quantum physics, they probably don't.

Quantum physics defies our common sense. It suggests (among several other weird things) that the universe is full of ?entangled? particles. In practice, this means that if you alter the physical properties of a particle on . . .

It was Donald Grey Barnhouse who once said, ?Love that reaches up is adoration, love that reaches across is affection, but love that reaches down is grace.? God has given each of us numerous opportunities to reach down, and there are many more times when it has been us who have been taken hold of by grace. You know what has guided your heart to be gracious, the apparent need, the remembrance of your past, the hope for good to occur?all these thoughts and many more go through our minds as we consider whether to be a gracious person in any given circumstance. These considerations do not take away from the fact that it really is grace that occurs.

My point is that grace is certainly the expression of love moving downwards, it is undeserved favor but it is guided or directed by a series of considerations in every case. Like the feathers on the shaft of an arrow or the grooves or the inside of a gun barrel, these considerations guide the expressions of grace every time. Humanly we can see how this is so, we get that, but what guides God's mind when it comes to Him being the bestower of grace? It still is an absolutely free act of His will towards us, Ephesians 2:8,9 demonstrates that, but what directs His will to be gracious to whom He will be gracious? Does God just show grace to everyone and under every circumstance, like a great grace dispensing machine where all you do is pull the lever and you get . . .

I sat at the table for five hours watching people walk by. Every now and then someone would stop and pick up one of my books. I'd chat with them, telling them the book was a collection of devotionals. Sometimes I'd share how the Lord had used it to make a change in someone's life. Usually they'd smile and move on. They'd move on to buy trinkets at other tables loaded with kitsch ? painted plastic santas, crocheted snowflakes, angels made of dishtowels, and snowmen made of styrofoam.

As the day wore on I got a little discouraged. And, as discouragement often does, it started to move into bitterness tinged with anger. Why were these people so eager to grab things that had so little value and would last for such a short time? Why weren't they more interested in buying something that could nourish their souls? It made me want to scream, but I kept quiet and tried to keep smiling when someone glanced my way.

As I drove home later that day I ruminated. I love that word ? it means to turn over and over, as in a cow chewing her cud. And that's what it felt like as I drove along ? my stomach was churning; I was stewing over what had happened, and I wasn't being very complimentary to those people who had not bought my books.

Then that still small voice whispered from somewhere beyond ? ?And what about you?? Me, Lord? Um ?

It's December 24, 1914. The day has dawned bright and sunny, if cold, instead of the miserable rain which made life more miserable in the stinking mud of the Western Front of WW1. Along a 27 mile front from Ypres to the La Basse canal, British troops and the German troops, at times less than 100 yards apart heard something amazing. The guns fell silent and here and there at first, they heard the sound of carolling. The songs would be picked up from men in the opposite trenches and before long, men who hours earlier would have killed each other were celebrating Christmas Eve, and in one case, engaged in a friendly game of soccer. The famous "Christmas Truce" of the First World War was hardly more than a momentary blip in one of the world's most bloody conflicts. But it happened.

And the world still waits for evidence that the Prince of Peace is upon the throne of God.
But we wait in hope, because Jesus has come and has offered us the hope which comes from feeling His love.

When I worked at counselling, a young woman came to see me. She had the usual litany that comes from a life of abuse: alcohol addiction, a series of broken relationships, lack of confidence and a deep lingering pain from the center of her being. She came to talk to me over about three years. Not weekly, but . . .