A lesson in grace from an oil spill (a blog)

Grace, an early lesson.

I was just a boy and the year I can’t remember,, it was sometime in the late 40’s I would guess My father had recently converted our wood burning kitchen stove to an oil burning one. Some of you may recall those old wick burners that had all those cylinder units that fit on a base with grooves in it tom accept the cylinders or sleeves. They were very inefficient, smelly and required a great deal of maintenance. The latest technology. There was a jug that was placed on a stand that had a piece of tubing which connected the oil jug to the burner. Outside, the oil barrel laid on its side on this wooden stand . It had two bungs just like they still do, a small one which was removed and a spigot screwed into and a larger one which when the barrel was laid on its side was oriented to the top. This was loosely screwed to provide a vent for easy oil flow. We would fill the jug here to carry the oil into the kitchen where the stove was and invert the jug onto it’s stand. On this particular day the barrel was full of oil…but not for long. For some stupid reason, I decided to investigate the setup and inadvertently knocked the drum filled with oil off the stand and onto the ground. Of course when the barrel hit the ground it rolled a bit so that the top bung now was the bottom bung and being loosely screwed to the drum, immediately fell off and the oil poured profusely on the ground. I’m in trouble…deep trouble I tried to stand it back up…not happening, my mind racing with the fact that we probably did not have any money for more. Besides the mess it would make. I ran to the kitchen window and saw Dad and Mom talking, so I rapped on the window with my fist to get Dad’s attention. Lo and behold my fist went through the window…I got his attention!......bigger trouble now. And sin is like that for many of us. we commit a sin, most likely a secret sin and then we commit another one to hide the first one. but God sees them all, just like Dad saw everything I had done that fateful day.
I knew that Dad would not be pleased with me and I ran away sobbing. I was in an attitude of repentance, genuinely sorry for my actions. I expected to get what I deserved. So, you ask, what did your father do and what did he say? My father put the oil barrel back where it belonged, cleaned up the mess that I made, then he took the window and put in a new piece of glass, and Dad never said one word. Never. It was just like it never happened, just as though I had never sinned. Jesus did the same thing for me when I surrendered to His calling. He never reminded me of the sins I had sinned, in fact He buried them in a place that even He can’t remember In Psalm 37 verse 24 speaking of a good man who falls, “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with His hand.” The day I had my own personal oil spill, I learned a powerful lesson on grace, the undeserved, unmerited grace of GOD. I deserved punishment but instead, I got favor.