The Pardon No One Expected

In 2019, former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger was convicted of murdering her neighbor Botham Jean, a twenty-six-year-old accountant and worship leader she shot in his own apartment. The courtroom braced for the sentencing. Then something happened that stunned the nation. Botham's eighteen-year-old brother Brandt took the stand, looked directly at the woman who killed his brother, and said, "I forgive you. I don't want you to go to jail. I want the best for you. Can I give you a hug?" The judge wept. The bailiff wept. Millions watching wept.

That moment didn't erase the crime. It didn't minimize the grief. But it put something on display that the world rarely sees — mercy so extravagant it defies human logic.

Paul understood that kind of mercy from the inside. He had hunted down believers, approved their executions, and tried to demolish the early church. By every measure, he was disqualified. Yet he writes to Timothy with astonishment still fresh in his voice: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners — of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me Christ Jesus might display His immense patience as an example."

God doesn't just forgive quietly. He puts His mercy on display — in courtrooms, in conversion stories, in every life that should have been written off but wasn't. Your transformation is not just for you. It is evidence, meant to make others believe that the Almighty's patience has no bottom.