I was wrong. 

Quite possibly, those are the three hardest words to say in the English language. Yet I couldn’t be happier to say them.

For years, I have consoled myself and others with the incomplete theology that God doesn’t waste anything. When a friend is suffering or a period of waiting feels interminable or the light at the end of the tunnel has burned out, I have assured them, “God doesn’t waste a thing.” 

While I believe he does not waste a moment of his children’s suffering, I do believe he “wastes” the most important thing of all: his grace.

Are you okay with the idea that God is wasteful? He lavishes his grace on a world that rejects him. Christ died for all sinners—not just for the ones who believe in him. A song with 166 million views on YouTube describes this kind of love as overwhelming, never ending, and reckless.

Today I praise God for his extravagant love that would pay for the sins of the entire world, even though many reject his payment. We don’t deserve his reckless love.

I did not earn the right to be called his child: “What great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1).

God has lavished his love on the world: heaped, poured, covered, smothered, dripping down, and overflowing.

I was wrong. Isn’t that great?