Richard Hoefler\u2019s book \u201cWill Daylight Come\u201d includes this homey story:<\/p>\n
A little boy visiting his grandparents was given his first slingshot. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit his target. As he came back to Grandma\u2019s backyard, he spied her pet duck. On impulse he took aim and let fly. The stone hit and the duck fell dead.<\/p>\n
The boy panicked. Desperately he hid the dead duck in the woodpile, only to look up and see his sister Sally watching. Sally had seen it all, but said nothing. After lunch that day, Grandma said, \u201cSally, let\u2019s wash the dishes.\u201d But Sally said, \u201cJohnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn\u2019t you, Johnny?\u201d She quickly whispered, \u201cRemember the duck!\u201d So Johnny did the dishes.<\/p>\n
Later Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing. Grandma said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but I need Sally to help make supper.\u201d Sally smiled and said, \u201cThat\u2019s all taken care of. Johnny wants to do it.\u201d And again the whisper, \u201cRemember the duck!\u201d Johnny stayed while Sally went fishing.<\/p>\n
After several days of doing both his chores and Sally\u2019s, he couldn\u2019t stand it. He confessed to Grandma that he killed the duck. \u201cI know, Johnny,\u201d she said, giving him a hug. \u201cI saw the whole thing. I was angry, but because I love you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnny, by way of his Grandmother, learned something of God\u2019s grace that day. God\u2019s grace is not earned, but it is given: freely, simply and abundantly. We can seek it, even expect it, but we are not in a position to demand it.<\/p>\n
[also found in Leadership, Fall 1983, p.86]<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Richard Hoefler\u2019s book \u201cWill Daylight Come\u201d includes this homey story: A little boy visiting his grandparents was given his first slingshot. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit his target. As he came back to Grandma\u2019s backyard, he spied her pet duck. On impulse he took aim and let fly. The stone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1330,4887,527,4888,297,49,4890,4889],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}