There’s just something about grace. It’s beautiful, it’s free and somehow, it’s altogether offensive. Have you ever struggled with the “I’m not good enough” plague upon your mind? Or perhaps: “I’m not doing enough/ achieving enough”. Or maybe it’s that roundabout guilt from past sins that rises and ebbs at times, but never seems to disappear? Paradoxically, these thought patterns can sometimes stem from pride. A pride that fails to understand the free gift of grace offered to us by God. A pride that teaches that we still somehow need to earn our salvation, or God’s forgiveness. A pride that deceives us into believing that we are somehow capable of earning it. But isn’t it by faith we have been saved? So can’t we take pride in our faith? The Bible tells us that no one can come to the Father unless He draws them. Despite our multiple attempts to prove the opposite, we are irretrievably wholesale products of the breath-taking and incomprehensible grace of God. ...
I had known for some time that this day would come. I woke that morning with a heavy heart, half hoping for a moment that my dream had been reality and my waking a dream. My reality was so much worse than any nightmare my mind could fabricate. Today was the last day of my freedom. Well, perhaps it would be more correct to say, that today would be the last of any semblance of self-independence. Today I would be escorted to the old courthouse in the centre of the city. I would attend the dreaded courtroom 99, known colloquially as ‘The Slave Market’. I would leave the courthouse, in the company of a new master. I would have been bought by one of my creditors. I would be his slave. The only uncertain thing about this entire process was who would claim me. All of my creditors had a good case in law and fact against me. And I could not afford to repay a single one. I had pawned everything I owned in the hopes of repaying my debt. Last week, I had made the tragic journey t...