Being off duty doesn’t always exempt me from strange encounters. One night while driving in a light rain, I noticed an old lady in front of me having difficulty keeping her car in the lane. As we continued down the highway, her driving became progressively worse.    

Suddenly, her car veered onto the median. She drove right into the concrete traffic divider on that median. Amazingly, her driver’s side tires ran up onto the concrete divider. And, she kept driving! Two wheels were up on the wall and two were on the road. “Well, that’s something you don’t see every day,” I said. “Some blue lights would come in handy right now.”   

Helpless to do much about it, I followed her to see if she would notice her car was vertical. After some horrible crunching metal sounds, she finally rolled off the divider wall. Yet, unfazed by what I considered a significant event, she drove on.    

Thankfully, a red light caught her. When she finally stopped, I jumped out and ran to her window. It didn’t take long to see the problem. Her windshield was completely fogged up. She couldn’t see the road and didn’t know how to operate the A/C. So, I reached in and turned on the defrost.    

Her windshield quickly cleared up. I suggested she get her car checked out, especially the side she just scraped against the concrete. She thanked me as I ran back to my car. All this because she couldn’t see through the windshield.   

For many of us, discerning spiritual truth is like looking through a fogged-up windshield. The message called the Gospel makes no sense. Then one day, God blows away the fog and we finally get it. The truth is profound yet simple. God does not ask us to earn His favor. He wants us to accept His grace.   

Once we understand grace, everything else makes better sense.  

 “We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.  For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight.” Romans 3:22-24