CTRL-Z

Long before most of us were aware of it, a software programmer fulfilled our wildest dreams with “CTRL-Z”. With a quick, two-finger motion, we could undo whatever mistake we just made. A pulse of digital signal and our typo transgression never happened. We take digital do-overs for granted these days, but who hasn't wished they could CTRL-Z something from their lives? Someone you wish you never dated, a party you wish you never attended, that perfect insult you wish you never uttered--we've all wished we could undo a few life-wrecking moments. But life is relentlessly linear, and unless you find a flux capacitor on eBay, there's no changing your self story.

Before the magic rewind of CTRL-Z, artists painted on canvas. A slip of the brush or a foible of misinspiration couldn't be removed. The artist simply used the mistake as the platform for the next move. An errant stroke became a tree branch. Beauty came from process, not first-try perfection. Our lives aren't much different, and even God doesn't violate this process.

Prayers that we would wake up and redo the day of a tragic misstep are not answered. As much as we beg God to CTRL-Z the Tuesday we wrecked the car, it be never happens. Instead, God gives something called grace, and grace doesn't reverse. Grace moves us toward the future.

God's healing never comes from undos. After we've experienced the gut-splattering consequences of our choices (or the collateral damage from someone else's choices), grace goes to work. Grace is the resin that flows into the rips and gouges of our souls and hardens to make us stronger than before. Grace forms a firm framework in our brokenness, giving us the rigidity to stand the weight of tearful consequence. Then in time, grace renovates our wounds into opportunities that allow grace to leak to others.

Grace turns the unplanned pregnancy into a beautiful child. An open-hearted apology graciously forms a stronger friendship that before. Grace does its work when a former alcoholic helps a struggling addict with the authority of "been there".

Like life, grace is relentlessly linear. It doesn't undo your mess--grace creates something new with the pieces you broke. With grace, better days are always to come.