April 2020 — pg. 26
I knew grace as a 13-year-old through a vacation Bible
school. Betty Swanson was used by God to mirror God’s
grace to me, a mixed-up and confused boy from a troubled
home. I knew it through her calm and loving words about
Jesus, asking me if I knew Him in a truly personal way. It
would take me a long time to put words to my experiences.
God beckoned me to Himself before I knew what He
was doing. He was inserting Himself into my life story
to prevent me from unimaginable troubles that would
assuredly consume me without Him.
But God’s grace didn’t stop there.
!e cold water was not enough to keep me from stepping
into the baptistry at First Church of God on a Sunday
evening. God’s grace beckoned me to be saved. I had prayed
and asked Jesus to forgive my sins, and now I wanted to
join Him in His death under that cold water. But I was still
ignorant of grace’s depth.
I deceptively thought I was progressing in my life with
Christ, but the truth is that I regressed. I went my own
way, even in the church, and my life and circumstances
were headed for a crash landing. !e divorce was the most
hurtful part of the collision. I didn’t comprehend grace
because I rested on my own ability to be “Christian.” In the
utter humility produced by the wreckage, I learned — and
only then could I learn — that God’s grace was unstoppable.
A#er years of experiencing God’s grace, I have come to
understand it through the lens of our Wesleyan theology:
It is a grace that beckons us toward repentance, toward
salvation and toward sancti$cation.
Out of all the crises in my life, the spiritual crisis that
emerged during those times opened the door of full
surrender to Jesus. I’m done with my own way because I
know what that produced. His way, His will, His life in me is
my only acceptable way to live. My personal faith-crisis has
also opened the %oodgates to an indescribable hunger for
God’s grace to draw, save and sanctify our generation. Our
prayers for such an awakening are fueled by the limitless,
unstoppable nature of grace.
Envision generational streams of trauma and brokenness
cut o". Close your eyes and dream of %ourishing where
there is poverty. Pray for the still small voice that visited me
to call upon the despairing souls in your town or city. It’s all
possible because the grace of God is a force that beckons.
But God’s grace doesn’t stop there.
I learned that it takes death to understand life. While
caring for my mother during the 19 months she lived with
brain cancer, I would o#en say to her, “Mom, this isn’t the
end of our story.” It was grace that helped her exchange
her home and belongings for a small room at an assisted
living facility saying, “!ey’re just things.” It was grace that
compelled her to speak to others about Jesus in her last
days. It was grace that helped her create handmade greeting
cards with her skills in artistry to bless other residents. And
it was grace that helped me grieve with hope knowing deep
in my heart that one day we would be reunited and glori$ed
in the presence of Jesus.
“!rough many dangers, toils and snares I have already
come. ‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace
will lead me home.”
And that’s my viewpoint on unstoppable grace.+
Brett Heintzman is the publisher
of LIGHT + LIFE through his
role as the communications
director of the Free Methodist
Church – USA, which he also
serves as the co-director of the
National Prayer Ministry. Visit
freemethodistbooks.com to order
his books “Becoming a Person of
Prayer,” “Holy People”(Volume
1 of the “Vital” series), “Jericho:
Your Journey to Deliverance and
Freedom” and “$e Crossroads:
Asking for the Ancient Paths.”
“I learned that
it takes death to
understand life.”
/freemethodistbooks.com