Fingerprints of God are everywhere. Some have become so commonplace that we no longer recognize their origin. Yet they remain.
As uniquely as these prints reveal themselves, a common arch persists throughout their forms: grace. Grace is the essence of God’s nature. Thomas Merton, in The Seven Storey Mountain, wrote, “What is ‘grace?’ It is God’s own life, shared by us.”[1] God’s life surrounds us. Grace surrounds us.
I once thought God had little to no time for me. This omnipotent being surely had greater things to accomplish than to tend to my finite whims. However, my understandings of infinitude and grace are tarnished by the brokenness of this world. My perceptions are warped by my brokenness.
Karl Barth once wrote, “The grace of God and the omnipotence of God are identical. We must never understand one without the other.”[2] I assumed one negated the other. Unbeknownst to me, omnipotence has no insecurities or limited timeframe to get in the way of being infinitely gracious. Infinitely: even unto me.
Grace is a strange entity. It is grace because it is accepted. It is accepted because it is grace. It is through grace that we become aware of our need for grace. Grace opens the receptors to grace. Likewise, we cannot extend grace nor help anyone see his or her own need for grace until we are completely convinced of our need for grace.
This fingerprint is everywhere. It beckons us to step back from our microscopic views to see more than the arches, loops, and whorls. It calls us to see the fingerprint. It calls us to see grace.
I leave you with a grace-filled fingerprint by Lorie Gooding (1972) . . .
He Is Everywhere
In every flower, I see I see his face
In every bush and tree his matchless grace
In all the stars that shine, I see his light divine
He’s with me all the time
In every place
I see him in the hills and mountains tall
It is his voice that fills the waterfalls
The rivers and the rills
The clouds, the moon, the sun
He’s in them every one
He’s all in all
He fills the widest sky, the deepest sea
I cannot tell you why
It’s mystery
But my rejoicing is I know that I am his
How wonderful it is
He walks with me
I cannot stray beyond his loving care
He compasseth my path
He’s everywhere
In morning’s joyous light
In gloom of deepest night
I never walk alone
My Lord is there
Grace is always there. Grace to you for the journey into grace!
-Sam Augsburger
