It's like a river of hot lava.*

It's like a huge river of hot lava, flowing in massive currents, with metallic crocodiles viciously swimming around. You and the rest of the world just killed Jesus, so you're running and running, until you find this river of lava. And all these people are jumping, trying to jump across this 30 feet wide river, to escape their guilt, to get away from what they just did. You see people all around, jumping five feet and dying, jumping six feet and dying, jumping ten feet and dying. You see Michael Phelps, and he jumps 18 feet, but he still dies. No matter how far people try to jump, they still die. And so you decide to jump to your fate too. And it's like God suddenly built a bridge under your feet, right before you could die. You obviously don't deserve it. You deserve to die; you just killed God's son for goodness sake.

And yet, God's grace still saved you. This is beyond any love you've ever seen, past all the anger and revenge plaguing the world. He kept you from falling into the lava, so that you could walk on the bridge to the other side and join Him. You don't deserve it. Nobody deserves it. So, you complain about how God isn't fair? How it's unjust for Him to save only Christians and not Muslims or all the other good people of the world? Well, if God were to be fair, then we'd all go to hell, every single one of us, for the sins that we've committed. But He is merciful...

So God's built this bridge for you. But there's still something you're not good at- maybe you have a speech impediment, maybe you think you're ugly, maybe you're shy, maybe you're blind. So you ask God, please, please get rid of this feature. Make me better. But why? That's like trying to jump on this bridge that God's already made for you; why are you still trying to jump when you can just walk across? Why do you need to be pretty, when you're already on the bridge, when God's already saved your life? You can stop jumping now. Because from here-on out, it's all God. All your talent, it's made possible by God.

Oh, praise God! How wonderful it is, His mercy!

*Analogy heard from Joyce Zou :)