"There but by the grace of God, go I." The quote is accredited to John Bradford, a 16th century Anglican burned at the stake by Catholic Queen Mary when she ascended to the throne.

"It was the grace of God that saved me." "There by the grace of God..." "Here by the grace of God..."These quotes are credited to various people involved in the earthquake in Haiti that managed to escape from the sudden destruction with their lives.

"There by the grace of God..." the quote that makes my skin crawl for what it implies about who God is.

I think I understand the reason for the words--we fragile humans have escaped some perilous situation. Unlike James Bond and most TV detectives/agents/spies, we don't usually make it through a hail of bullets unscathed. When we do find ourselves in the surprising position of survivor and there is no apparent reason, it is easy to credit this divine power who loves us. But the unspoken message that follows "God saved me..." is that God didn't save someone else or that God didn't share God's grace with that other guy at the bottom of a crushed building.

When we escape with our lives, or get a second chance, or work out an insurmountable problem, and we can't figure out how we possibly did it, of course we would credit God. Does that mean we will blame God if we don't escape with our lives or get a second chance or work out our problems? Sometimes.

I remember when my children were young...they all went through this stage of blaming me or any other convenient person for whatever went wrong. A lot of adults never leave that phase. Certainly our culture's first response any bad happening is to find who to blame. We're human. Stuff happens. Good stuff. Bad stuff. Most of it is just stuff...no blame can be assigned.

So where is God in the stuff? I just can't picture God floating around the mess deciding who to bail out and who to let suffer. That is not the understanding of God I get from the biblical text. God is not the decider; God is the sufferer. God is simply with us. God doesn't lecture us on how we should have behaved. God doesn't wait for us to behave better before God is with us. God is just with us. Sometimes in joy, sometimes in suffering. Sometimes we know God is with us. Sometimes we don't know God is with us. But God is there...under the concrete or celebrating on the Today Show. God is there.

There by the grace of God go I....nope....

Here in the grace of God are we all...that I can buy.