Doritos Grace
It’s odd, Doritos can wind up in the oddest places…
My friend and fellow former Faith Assembly staffer, Jake Evangelist, once told me a hilarious story from his childhood, which involved a bag of Doritos in the middle of the night. Soon after I heard the story, a plastic bag with Doritos from some kid’s lunch ended up in our school’s office. I immediately stuck the bag in Jake’s mailbox. I thought it might conjure up fond memories of that night so long ago.
Jake went to his box, pulled out the bag of chips and began to laugh. Soon, the bag ended up in my box. Now it was on.
We put the chips on car seats, in desks, all kinds of strange places. Then, the chips disappeared. About three weeks later, I received a box in the mail. I love getting boxes in the mail. The contents could be Hot Wheels from my Round Table of Goodness friends, or some kind of goofy trinket I ordered and forgot about. Whatever is in the box, it is always fun to open it. There I was, at my house, opening this box to see what cool thing I had received.
You guessed it, it was the bag of Doritos. Jake had upped the ante.
By now the chips weren’t really chips anymore. They were more like chip chunks, rapidly becoming some type of nacho cheese flavored dust. I decided to hold on to the chip dust, waiting for just the right time to get him back. In the meantime, I never let Jake know I had received the package. I knew the suspense was killing him, so I let him stew.
About two months later, Jake and his extended family went to see the Padres play in San Diego. During the seventh inning stretch, Jake’s family members passed the chip bag all the way down the row and handed it to Jake with a simple message, “Jerry said to give you this.” Jake nearly fell out of the stands. I got him good.
God’s grace always surprises me like that bag of Doritos. You never know where it will show up, and sometimes it is revealed in ways we didn’t think possible or probable.
Over the years, I have experienced and heard many stories of God’s grace. I am struck by how God works so differently in each person’s life. The one theme that ties all of the experiences together is God’s grace.
Grace is when you deserve punishment, but don’t receive it. It has been described as “unmerited favor.”
So how much grace does God have? Enough. Many years ago, a Texas oil man asked the horsepower rating of a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. The problem was that nobody could tell him the horsepower because Rolls Royce didn’t publish the figure. The man was insistent, however, so the dealer wired the factory and asked.
The factory answered back, “Sufficient.”
Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” (2 Corinthians 12:9) You can’t use up God’s grace, and it will never let you down. It will always be there, ready to surprise you, and show up when you least expect it.
Kind of like a bag of Doritos…
Today’s Readings: 1 Samuel 13; 1 Chronicles 2,3; 2 Corinthians 12
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