Pebbles and Dragons: How Grace Works Slowly

 

  

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BLUF:
Grace rarely arrives with a flash of light. More often, it begins as a quiet irritation of truth—a small pebble of grace pressing in the soul until the heart can no longer ignore it. Our part is to speak wisely and kindly; God’s part is to awaken the heart.

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When Eustace Scrubb first appeared in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he was the boy nobody liked—spoiled, cynical, and absolutely certain he was right. He mocked his cousins’ talk of Narnia as childish fantasy, dismissed courage as foolishness, and believed the world was made for his comfort. Then he found himself on a ship bound for the edge of the world, surrounded by people whose quiet strength he could neither understand nor outwit.

Eustace didn’t change overnight. Grace almost never works that way.

First came frustration, then loneliness, then—after a dragon’s hoard and a cursed sleep—the terrible realization that he had become the very thing his heart resembled: a dragon, greedy and isolated. Only then, when his own scales became unbearable, did he finally meet Aslan. The great Lion tore away the hide Eustace could not shed himself, layer after layer, until a raw and trembling boy stood new in the water.

Lewis writes, “It would be nice, and fairly nearly true, to say that from that time forth Eustace was a different boy. To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy.”

That line has always lingered with me—because that’s how most of us come to faith.

Greg Koukl once said his goal in evangelism isn’t to “close the deal,” but simply to put a stone in someone’s shoe—something that bothers them in a good way, something they can’t quite shake. Most people aren’t won by argument in a single flash of light. They’re drawn by a series of nudges, conversations, kindnesses, questions—small pebbles of truth that keep pressing on the soul until the Spirit brings them to life.

The apostle Paul described it this way:

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” — 1 Corinthians 3:6

Jesus said it, too:

“One sows and another reaps... Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” — John 4:37–38

Conversion, like growth, is slow work. The seed sprouts, the stalk rises, the head forms, and then comes the grain (Mark 4:26–29). Most of us are sowers, not harvesters. Our task is not to force belief but to speak truth gently and leave it where God can make it grow.

Sometimes it’s a question. Sometimes a verse. Sometimes an act of mercy that disarms self-righteousness. Like the bishop’s candlesticks in Les Misérables, or the dragon’s tear that falls from Eustace’s eye—each moment is a pebble in the shoe of unbelief, and God knows exactly when the stone will finally turn into a seed.

So don’t despise the small encounters. Don’t measure your faithfulness by the harvest you can see. When you walk away from a conversation feeling like nothing changed, remember: you may have just placed a stone that heaven will someday call a cornerstone.

 

Soli Deo Gloria  

 

The Sword and the Spring

 

 

 “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
— 1 Corinthians 16:13–14

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When I was a boy growing up in Mesa, the desert wind would sometimes whip through the hay barns behind our house, scattering bits of straw and dust like tiny gold flecks in the sun. My friends and I used to build forts out of the hay bales—our own little citadels of courage. We'd defend them with broomsticks and bravery, pretending to be knights standing for something noble.

Even then, I suppose, there was something in me that believed good ought to stand its ground.

Years later, I’d read Jesus’ words and feel their weight:

“He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”
— Luke 22:36

It wasn’t about aggression. It was about readiness. Jesus was sending His disciples into a hostile world—not to conquer by force, but to stand with conviction when the world pressed hard against truth. The sword symbolized vigilance—wisdom sharpened on the stone of reality.

Then there’s the proverb:

“Like a trampled spring and a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.”
— Proverbs 25:26

If the sword is readiness, the spring is purity. When we compromise truth or yield to fear, the well of our witness grows murky. And the world, already thirsty for meaning, finds no refreshment in us. In every generation, believers must decide: will we be clear water or muddy runoff?

David gives us the final note:

“Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.”
— Psalm 144:1

It’s not the war of vengeance, but the war of faithfulness. God trains us for the inward fight—to resist cynicism, to hold truth with love, to battle despair with hope. The Christian life remains a fight, not of swords but of spirit, and every act of obedience is a strike against the darkness.

So the theme still holds. Whether in the dust of ancient Israel or the noise of our modern world, God calls His people to a steady, prepared righteousness—the kind that neither lashes out nor gives in. To carry the sword of readiness and keep the spring of our soul clear is to live with both courage and clarity.

Prepared righteousness—and that’s just one reason we should support a Christian nation.
For who but the Christian is equipped to answer when God says, “Whom shall I send?”
The faithful reply, “Here am I. Send me.”

It’s not about ruling over others but about serving under Christ—bringing truth, justice, and peace into every sphere, making safe a land that can care for the vulnerable.
A Christian nation is one where righteousness is prepared, not presumed; where conviction meets compassion; where readiness bows before the Lord who trains our hands for battle.

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A Prayer for Strength and Steadiness

Lord, train my hands for the battles of the heart.
Keep my convictions sharp and my spirit faithful.
Make me neither timid nor rash,
but steadfast in truth and faithful in love.
Let my life be a spring unpolluted,
and my readiness a sword unsheathed only at Your command.
Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

 

The Truth That Loves Enough to Correct

 

When I read a recent blog that said, “Jesus didn’t debate—He just loved,” I found myself muttering, "What in the wide-wide world of sports are you talking about?"  I get what the writer meant. They were trying to highlight the compassion of Christ—the gentleness, the mercy, the way He met people where they were. But something in me couldn’t let it rest there. Because love that never corrects isn’t love at all—it’s sentimentality.

Jesus loved people deeply. And because He loved them deeply, He spoke truth to them—sometimes in ways that unsettled, sometimes in ways that offended, but always in ways that invited transformation.

Think about that conversation between Jesus and Pilate in John 18. It wasn’t a heated exchange, but it was most certainly a debate—a collision of two worldviews. Pilate, the Roman governor, was trying to pin Jesus down on the charge of being a political threat: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus could have simply said yes or no. Instead, He pressed deeper: “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about Me?”

In that question alone, Jesus turned the tables. He wasn’t defending Himself; He was exposing Pilate’s assumptions. He was leading Pilate toward truth—toward the uncomfortable realization that power and truth are not the same thing, and that the real Kingdom stands above all earthly ones.

Then came the defining line: “My kingdom is not of this world… Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Pilate’s reply, still echoing in the corridors of history, was the question of an age unwilling to bow: “What is truth?”

That’s the heart of it, isn’t it? Jesus loved enough to debate—not to win arguments, but to win hearts back to reality. He dismantled falsehood because falsehood enslaves. He confronted error because error blinds. Whether with Pharisees or disciples, He always took thoughts captive and made them obedient to the truth of God’s Kingdom.

Somewhere along the way, our culture has decided that correction and compassion can’t share the same sentence. But in Jesus, they always did. He is Truth embodied and Love incarnate—and the two are never at odds.

Maybe the most Christlike thing we can do is to recover that same balance: to love people enough to tell them the truth, and to tell the truth in such a way that they feel loved.

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“Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” — John 18:37

Closing Prayer:
Lord Jesus, help me love as You loved—boldly, wisely, and truthfully. Guard me from the kind of love that fears correction, and from the kind of truth that lacks compassion. Let both dwell together in me, as they do perfectly in You. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria