Thoughts on Grace on the Anniversary of the Quake

Yesterday I had the privilege of giving a devotional message to our patients, on the anniversary of the quake. I felt the best message would be one on grace. "Are we alive today because we are better people than those who died last year in the quake?", I asked my patients. They all agreed that was false. So why were we spared? I have no answer for that one, except God's grace. An undeserved gift. And it's that same grace that will usher Daphne and other christians who were killed in the quake into heaven's eternal peace. Salvation, just like life, is an undeserved gift. All that is required of us to find that gift is to accept it. Accept that Christ's work, His death and resurrection, is all that was necessary to atone us. That's hard for a person who likes to be in control, like me. Often, I would rather be given a list of do's and dont's, and told that if I stick to the list, and am a good enough person, I could be spared traumatic death in natural disasters and would never suffer horrible tragedies or hardships in my life and would die peacefully in my bed as a very old woman and would then be ushered into heaven, all based on the fact that I was so good. But that's not how it works, and if I think about it for any length of time, I'm glad it doesn't work that way. Because if it did, I would find that I was never quite good enough, or never certain of my good/bad status, and always fearful of what would happen to me and what my eternal destination would be. Instead, there is grace. God's grace that says, "Even if you don't deserve this, I'll give it to you. Just trust in the goodness of my Son." He is good, indeed. Thank you, Lord, for your undeserved grace that saved us in the quake, and saves our souls for eternity.