Dovetails

Have you ever had an experience in which everything dovetails together in such a way that you wonder if God is at work?

Tomorrow, I am supposed to present the message at our Common Grounds service. It is a first person portrayal of Delilah. As I began to think about the character, I was also beginning co-teaching our new class about grace. The thoughts of Delilah and grace dovetailed.

• Steve brought a new CD -- Wow Hymns. As I was listening, I got stuck on the song Grace, Grace, God's Grace. This song became a part of the message in my mind.
• After I emailed the minister who is the worship leader for this service, I heard back that she had been thinking about grace, too, and that she was planning on ending the service with Grace Alone. Isn't that an odd coincidence for a message about Delilah?
• The topic of the class we taught tonight was forgiveness
• The song Grace, Grace God's Grace is based on the hymn, Grace that is Greater than all my sins. The scripture inspiration for this hymn is Romans 5:20.

All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.
Aggressive forgiveness we call grace. I think that fits right into the lesson for this evening.

• This quote came in my email today. It's a quote about grace, as well:

Yet, for all this lukewarmness, we hunger. And we know well enough the there is a response. There is an answering back to the Grace of God on your part and on mine that is all-important. We know, too, that the redeeming of our time calls for nothing less than the blazing up out of our prostrate bodies of an authentic, original, passionate, interior life in answer to the Living Flame that confronts us.

There are times when everything seems to dovetail together. Dovetail. Dove. Holy Spirit. God. Dovetails.