Your dad makes you come to church, but he can’t make you listen. At least that’s what you’ve always muttered to yourself. But this morning you listen because the preacher speaks of a God who loves prodigals, and you feel like the worst sort of one.

You can’t keep the pregnancy a secret any longer. Soon your parents will know. The preacher will know. And the preacher says God already knows and you wonder what God thinks.

Could you use some grace? You know, grace is God’s best idea. Rather than tell us to change, he creates the change. Do we clean up so he can accept us? No, he accepts us and begins cleaning us up. What a difference this makes! Can’t forgive your past? Christ can, and he is on the move, aggressively budging you from graceless to grace-shaped living. A forgiven person who forgives others. This is grace. Grace is everything Jesus!