What a Mess!

If you have ever dropped a full, unopened jar of prepared spaghetti sauce on a hard tiled floor, you know it makes one of the worst kinds of a mess. If it happened at the grocery store, your first impulse was probably to look up and down the aisle to see if anyone saw you. If not, you were most likely tempted to flee the spot as quickly as you could. If it happened to someone else, you probably just turned and walked away.

It can be an even bigger mess when it happens at home…in the pantry. Not only does sauce go all over the floor, it seems to splatter onto everything in an eight-foot radius…and not just in a straight line. And you can’t just wipe it off—the stain remains! On the cartons. On the walls. On the napkins and towels and dishrags you grab to wipe up the mess.

You have to be very careful, though. You never know how far the glass has spread. Sometimes the sauce does seem to keep the glass a little closer to the impact site. (It certainly is not as bad as dropping a piece of Corelle® dinnerware. It can take months to collect all the pieces—and the smallest ones are mere slivers…and so sharp they’ll cut you in an instant.) Scooping up sauce and glass is particularly troubling as you realize there is no way to save what was going to be your dinner.

Nevertheless, as big a mess as a shattered jar of spaghetti sauce can make; it is nowhere as big as the mess people make of the relationships in their lives on a much too regular basis. Sometimes friendships are broken through the same kind of careless inattention that knocks the jar off the shelf. Other times, people seem intent on seeing how much grief they can cause their mothers and father, sisters and brothers. (Imagine folks hurling jars of sauce at one another.)

While you may have never had the misfortune of watching a jar of sauce hit the floor, you have probably experienced the brokenness of a significant relationship. Even now, you may be wondering if there is anything you can do to make things right.

There is one thing you should know: God is in the business of reconciliation…of restoring broken relationships through the power of grace. And God is not just concerned about how you are getting along with your neighbors; God is committed to restoring your relationship with him…through the life, death, and resurrection of his son, Jesus.

It is truly amazing!

Good news!

And another way the grace of God can transform your life.