By a roundabout route, I have come this week to understand more of the scope of grace, and my limitless (note that word) freedom-in-God. I'm a big fan of arte.tv, the pan-european tv network, which although it doesn't broadcast live to the UK, has a wonderful i-player facility. This week I caught up with a programme on the the death marches from Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45. As the soviets advanced westward, concentration camps were abandoned, and inmates- no, let's call them prisoners- were forced to march under guard back to other camps on German soil. Thousands died on the way, either from exhaustion, disease, or were shot by the guards. Often the villages they marched through treated them despicably. If a train was provided, it was open cattle wagons; this in the middle of winter. I groaned at many points, shocked by what I had not known before.
The depth of human depravity shocked me afresh. The depth of what we can do is only limited by our human finity. God has truly given us freedom of will and action -including the freedom to be as depraved as we care to be. But thankfully, the grace and mercy of God is far more extensive than even the deep, deep depths of our human depravity. It is limitless. These are easy words to say; I suspect many of us will have trotted them out without thought to what we have affirmed. This week I realised more of the dimensions of grace and freedom-in-God. That it is limitless became more real.
Ok, slow learner. But still learning, and more thankful, more wanting to explore a bigger dimension.
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