I’ve heard it more than once, and have thought it to myself: “I know God says this is wrong, but I know He’ll forgive me for it anyway.” We dress it up in Bible-talk, to elevate it, as if a “thee” or a “thou” can make a cowflop into a communion wafer. His grace is sufficient.

We come to this place because we are at odds with our circumstances. There is something we desperately want, and we are told it is sin to grasp it. It is sin to leave one’s spouse for the amazing true love who has miraculously entered one’s life. It is sin to walk out on one’s children, even though they’ll be better off, when felt called to be an artist in a commune. It is sin to abort the infant with Down syndrome. In every case where we presume upon God’s mercy, even as we spit in His face, we juxtapose the rule with the passion, the dead letter with the beating heart of want.

So we talk about God’s love as if it can be separated from His hatred of sin. And in this we betray a dreadful error in our understanding of God, which is the notion that He despises sin because of something it does to Him. As if we are called to refrain from self-gratification because God doesn’t like for us to enjoy ourselves. As if the rules are laid down for God’s benefit.

In other words, we forget that God despises sin because He loves us. That sin is the off-mark path, the self-begetting delusion, the alluring mirage across burning sand that leaves us where there is no water, no respite, only a seared conscience.

The grace of God is sufficient, amen, but it is not a forced grace. How then can you claim it when you strike out in the opposite direction, away from the heart of God? What delusion leads you to believe that you can march headlong toward your idol of comfort, or true love, or happy marriage, or career, and find God awaiting you there? How will you need Him more, when your petty soul is soothed by your stolen happiness? If you defy Him in your hurt, what makes you think you will seek Him—the fullness of Him who desires all of you unto His death and yours—when your days are filled with satisfaction?

I’ve needed to be reminded of this more than once in my life. I’ll likely need to remember it many more times. And I pray even now for people I know who cannot yet see it.