Lewis B. Smedes in this revised version of a book he wrote in 1982 asks, "How can we be ground down in pain and grief and death and still believe that it's all right at the center of life? The answer must be blowing somewhere in the winds of grace." The author of The Art of Forgiving and The Good Life explores the three faces of grace: pardon, power, and promise.

Smedes probes joy as "our destiny and our desire," forgiveness as "dancing to the rhythm of God," and the obligation of Christians to suffer with someone else. Believers are challenged not to be killers of wonder, not to be prisoners of other people's opinions, and not to be "catastrophe hypochondriacs." Smedes rejoices in the freedom we have to live with our critics and calls it "one of the fine arts of gracious living." This former professor of theology and ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary also asserts, "Any moment that opens us up to the reality that life is good is a parable of the supreme end for which we were made."