“I do not frustrate the grace of God,” Paul says in Galatians 2:21. Paul says “I do not frustrate the grace of God,” but it would have been more accurate for him to say that he can not frustrate the grace of God, and neither can any of us. The original Latin root of our word frustrate meant to deceive or cause to be in vain. We can not deceive God, nor can we cause any of His works or any part of His plan to be in vain. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked” (Galatians 6:7). God knows all of our tricks. He knows all of the lies that we tell Him, and all of the lies that we tell ourselves. And you know what? He loves us anyway. He forgives us anyway. Even though we will do everything we can think of to take advantage of and abuse and trample under foot the precious gift of His Grace, Jesus Christ died for us anyway. All of our willful attempts to deceive God will fail. All of the things that we will do or not do, intentionally or accidentally, to render ineffective the Atonement will themselves be rendered ineffective in the end. Jesus Christ did not die for our sins in vain. He did not suffer more agony than the mind can conceive because He was duped into making a bad bet on a lost cause. The natural man or woman inside each of us is fighting the long defeat against the Grace of God. Christ will be victorious in the end. He will claim us as His, because He does not get frustrated. He will patiently and lovingly and with incomprehensible meekness and gentleness of heart persuade us to come unto Him. He will put us on the right path and then five seconds later when we wander off He will, without any frustration, point us back onto the path again. He will pick us up and pick us up and pick us up every single time that we fall. And He will not be frustrated. We may have deceived ourselves into believing that we are anything less than beloved sons and daughters of God, but Christ is not deceived. We may have felt that we have squandered every opportunity, wasted every second chance, and made even the great and last sacrifice of our Lord and Savior in vain in our specific case, but we are wrong. In the equation of Christ and His Grace and us, the only part of that that can possibly be frustrated is us. But if we turn to our Savior, and if we put our trust in Him, and if we accept the reality that He will not only forgive and save us but also exalt us to greater joy and peace and glory than our tiny brains can possibly imagine, then we too will find that neither can we be frustrated. We will have the Grace of Christ flowing through us, giving us patience when we misunderstand God’s plan and His timing, and peace when our righteous desires and willing spirit come into conflict with the weakness of our flesh, and the wisdom to put our time and energy and effort always into the things that matter most.
