Always be ready to explain your hope
to anyone who demands an account from you.
— 1 Peter 3.15
Be mindful of how God has acted with grace in your life. Be prepared in every moment to bear witness to God’s grace, for at any turn such accounting may be demanded of you — not by threatening inquisitors, but by thirsty beggars. Be attentive lest you miss the grace that passes before you, whether as small as a single birdsong or as broad as the rising sun of your own life restored. Be grateful, lest these pearls have been thrown to swine. And be ready to speak of it in the grandest or simplest words or deeds. You have not invented your own hope; it has sprung, green and living, from the grace that has rained upon you, has welled up from deepest springs, has come to you in steadfast rivers. Treasure this hope with the highest honor: not to hoard it, but to share. For at any moment you may be the one to offer such living water to one whose lips are parched, who in their thirst may act haughtily or even with anger, but whose heart thirsts for hope. Be ready. God’s grace is infinite, and it alone is the source of all our hope. Be ready, lest the miracle escape you.
— May 17, 2017