Casablanca Experience

7 Billion people in the world, and of all the Sunday School classes in all the towns in all the world, she walked into mine (said with a bad Humphrey Bogart accent). Can you imagine? I was in seventh grade at the time, and though I may not have heard about “love at first sight,” I knew right then that it was possible! My heart was smitten.

Before that faithful seventh-grade encounter, I was a secret admirer—leaving unsigned notes on a sixth-grade crush’s desk. She never knew I liked her because I never told her.

I would wait until everyone had left our sixth-grade classroom and place the prewritten note on her desk. It was easy because I sat in front of her. When we returned from recess, she found the note on her desk, invited her friends over, and giggled as she read it.

I thought it would be clever to sign one of those notes, ‘Agent 86’ from the old sitcom Get Smart. Looking back, I’m unsure what I was thinking, but even then, I knew confessing would have been a disaster. Sometimes, things are better left in secret. After hearing her very confused response, I decided the secret admirer plan wouldn’t work, so I gave up the entire venture.

It was a strange thing to do, and I probably don’t have to write this, but the relationship was doomed.

A Special Someone

Every relationship begins somewhere. Maybe someone walked into your gin joint (or reasonably facsimile). Or maybe you saw the person from across the room and knew, “That’s the one!” Perhaps the person “grew on you” over time. Regardless of how it happened, there has to be a time when two people come together and meet for the first time.

With about 7 billion people on the earth, you will never even know a fraction. But that’s OK. You don’t want or need to know them all. Sometimes, one is enough.

That special someone, if you didn’t know, your life would be much poorer. Maybe you are picturing him or her right now, that one person who means the world to you or may even be your world.

I don’t know how you first met, but you did. At some point, you met them. The time was just right, and finally, you met them!

Our Secret Admirer

John Wesley preached about God’s grace. Grace is unmerited favor. We don’t deserve grace, so we don’t need to earn it. If we could earn grace, it wouldn’t be grace. At that point, grace would be a wage or earning, not grace.

John Wesley taught that God’s grace is all around us throughout our lives. He called this experience of grace prevenient. It was the grace that goes before. The great thing is, we don’t have to be or do anything. It’s always there, waiting for us.

“Just like my secret admirer days, God’s prevenient grace is often at work behind the scenes, unnoticed and unacknowledged. We might not see the notes He leaves for us, but they’re there—small, thoughtful gestures of love, waiting for the day we finally recognize them.

Prevenient grace is God’s way of expressing love to us, even when unaware. We don’t have to earn it or need to be anything other than who we are. This grace is always there, patiently waiting for us to open our eyes and recognize it.

Depth of Love

While it’s wonderful to have a secret admirer, there’s something even better—meeting them, falling in love, and growing old together. It’s the same with God’s grace. It’s always there, surrounding us, but to truly experience the depth of His love, we must respond. Just as my seventh-grade encounter blossomed into a 35-year marriage, our relationship with God deepens when we acknowledge and respond to His ever-present love.

Loving someone from afar doesn’t allow you to experience the depth of love. To experience the depth of love, the other person must respond.

While God’s grace surrounds us, we will never experience the depth of God’s love until we respond. He is already operating in your life, loving you, caring for you.

Out of 7 billion strangers, there’s One who has always been there, patiently waiting. Have you noticed the notes He’s left for you? Have you sensed His grace? Experienced his love from afar? Maybe it’s time to respond.

This is part of “The Formative Path” a 2024 Fall Sermon Series at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Indiana. For more information and the Weekly Reflection Sheets, go to https://ponderingpassages.com/category/path/