One of my author friends is Lee Strobel, who has written several excellent books including The Case for Christ. In the summer of 1974, while I was slogging my way through seventh grade, Lee was an eager young journalist working at the Chicago Tribune. While I was pursuing a cute girl near the back of the classroom, Lee was pursuing fame, pleasure, and wealth. I came up empty. Lee didn’t. Before long he had the world in his pocket. A law degree from Yale. Award-winning crime stories gracing the front pages. But four years later, Lee’s world began to unravel.

Central to his selfish pursuits had always been the belief that there was no God. To him the idea of a loving Creator was absurd. But when his wife came home from church one day with the news that she believed Jesus Christ was the Son of God, Lee stood dumbfounded. Over the months he watched her life. He thought Christianity would make her stuffy, boring, and dull. Instead her smile wouldn’t go away. She was more fun than ever. Unable to deny the dramatic change in her, Lee decided to combine his legal training and journalistic savvy to systematically pick apart Christianity. Two years later his journey through the evidence took him to the same place it has taken millions of skeptics throughout history: the foot of the cross.

I talked to Lee recently, asking him for one good reason to laugh. Lee told me that he had read an article I wrote in Servant magazine in which I talked about what I wanted on my tomb stone. Alfred I Hitchcock said he wanted his to say, “This is what they do to bad little boys,” and someone else has as his epitaph, “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” But I wrote that I want mine to say, “He found God’s grace too amazing to keep to himself.”

Lee read that and stopped. Then he read the statement to his wife. “That’s what I want on mine,” he told her. Lee said, “I am so bowled over by the fact that God would forgive someone who led such a disgusting and immoral life for so many years. There is a daily sense of wonder that God has not only adopted me as a son, but given me a ministry reaching out to people like I once was. It overwhelms me.”

God’s grace should overwhelm all of us, shouldn’t it? I know of no better reason in all the world to celebrate than this: We don’t get what we deserve. We get something far better. It’s called grace.

Callaway, Phil. Laughing Matters. Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2005, p. 172-173.