“Do you like it here?” I asked my 17-year-old daughter. We were in New Orleans for a few days on a college tour.

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

The light in her eyes told me it was true.

“I couldn’t do it,” I said. “I couldn’t live in this city all of the time.”

Memories of the mentally ill man, who was clothed in rags and eating potato chips off the sidewalk, and the desperately neglected boxer puppy we had seen that morning were still haunting me.

My daughter sighed.

“If it were up to you,” she said softly, “you would give all of our money to the homeless and bring home every stray puppy.”

I suppose it is true that I’m a sucker for the downtrodden, the weak and the vulnerable. As a matter of fact, only a few days after my daughter and I returned home from our trip I was driving through my hometown when I spotted a turtle in the road; and my first impulse, as usual, was to stop to pick it up and move it safely to the grass on the other side.

But then something stopped me in my tracks.

You see, this country girl hardly even needed to slow down to see this was a snapping turtle. I will stop for a box turtle just about every time, but a snapping turtle?

No, thanks, the cost of that act of compassion would be a little too high for me.

“Sorry, buddy,” I said as I drove past. “Good luck with that crossing.”

Then, the little voice in my heart whispered-

God would have stopped for the snapping turtle.

And I was reminded for, I don’t know… the thousandth time, just how wide the gulf is between God’s character and mine. The sad truth is that even in my most tender moments I measure worthiness.

With each person I meet, I am asking, “Are you good enough — safe enough — for me to risk getting hurt to offer you mercy?”

Without even considering the justice or righteousness of my evaluation, these are the decisions I make moment by moment, breath by breath.

Not God. He formed the snapping turtle with the same tender intentionality as He did the box turtle. He reveled in the bite of the one with the same delight as He did the timidity of the other.

And to all creatures — the lions and lambs, the sharks and the dolphins, the pit bulls and Maltipoos, He shows the same loving, watchful care.

How much more to the sons of men?

His compassion, generosity, and lavish love extend to Nobel Peace Prize winners and death row inmates, to the sweet little older lady from the gym who calls me, “honey” and to the hateful woman who cut me off in traffic yesterday.

Oh, no, God is not like me. Not at all.

May His powerful love change me today. May God’s boundless, limitless mercy empower me to offer compassion courageously, love lavishly —

And forever live a life defined by Snapping Turtle Grace.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people.” (Titus 2:11 ESV)