Grace on a Thursday: Avalanche

My latest favorite worship song is called "Like an Avalanche" by Hillsong. This week, these two lines are speaking to me:

And I find myself here on my knees again
Caught up in grace like an avalanche.
Nothing compares to this love. Love. Love.

I wonder if I experience grace like an avalanche. It's a powerful phrase that I skip over as if it's simply poetry. But watch this.

An avalanche is not careful. It is trembling and awesome, wiping out every hindrance in its path without effort. It makes a landscape altogether different. Do I allow grace to do that in my heart?

When I was very small, I started to accumulate this pile of sin, let's imagine, in heaven. I see it as on a scale tipping lower and lower as the years went by, my rebellion adding to it every day. The pile became a mountain of debt I couldn't pay. It was a pile of darkness and filth compared to His holiness.

But then the moment arrived when I yielded my life to Him. I found myself on my knees pleading for that heap of sin to be taken off my scale. All that weight had followed and haunted me too long. I asked Jesus to forgive me, and I believed that His blood paid the debt I owed. And suddenly, all was changed.

Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow.

Isaiah 1:18

The mountain on my scale became glaring and white, and it was so heavy that the scale began to tip. At first a bit slid off, snowflakes sprinkling down on me below. But momentum gathered the rest and suddenly, a tremendous avalanche of grace cascaded downward until every last bit had been cleaned off the scale. Does my heart tremble at the thought of what Jesus has done to my mountain of sin?

I realize I don't want a little grace. I don't want God to sprinkle it onto my life like I sprinkle cinnamon on my coffee, yet that's sort of how I picture it sometimes. Like it's a garnish on the side of my life for me to then sprinkle on those around me when they "need" it, and when I feel like giving it. No.

He longs for us to let grace crash down on us like an avalanche, catch us up in the power, overwhelm us, and altogether change the landscape in our hearts.

After an experience with grace like that, everything looks different, particularly other people's mountains. For those you know who have also trusted Jesus with their lives, you begin to recognize their snowy landscapes, understanding that their sin has been paid for just like yours (so who am I to condemn?). For those who still bear the weight of their own mountain of sin, you begin to pray that they too will one day yield to the One who can free them (so what can I feel but compassion?). Totally different landscape.

This avalanche of grace is not a one-time event at the moment of surrender. It's a constant flowing, a sea of white, covering us and our sin. Washing away the shame. Cleansing us from the filth. Exchanging darkness for light.

And God knows I need to be caught up in it every single day.