His Grace is Sufficient for You
I bought a new planner for the year a couple of weeks ago. It took me forever to find just the right one—it had to be the perfect size, have a whole month view and sections for individual days, enough room to write notes and plans, a comfortable fit for my colorful sticky notes, and of course it had to have a pretty cover.
As I set it up so that I could start using it this past week, I heard very clearly in my spirit to write this scripture at the top of the page, “My grace is sufficient for you…” I admit I was a little blasé about it and didn’t really see what it had to do with anything at the time, but I’ve learned not to question the Lord and just obey, so I wrote it and moved on.
“Ironically”, this phrase was my lifeline this past week. In the ebbs and flows of each day, as subtle feelings of failure, frustration, tiredness, and discontent would sneak in, the jotted note at the top of the page would catch my eye and the deepest most perfect sense of relief and mercy would come flooding over me and electrify my soul. The truth of this scripture would wash over me and suddenly the cares of the moment or the day would be replaced by this pulsating truth beating loudly in my heart.
Admittedly, the kindness in the words made me cringe because there was always this feeling each time of, “I don’t deserve that right now…I took my eyes off of You and let myself get distracted, weighed down and bogged down AGAIN. What’s wrong with me…” But with a gentle and steady rhythm the words would softly but firmly repeat: “My grace is sufficient for you…”
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:7b-10, “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
God is not afraid of our weakness—we may be afraid of our own weakness, but He is not. His promise again and again in Scripture is that He will never leave us nor forsake us. He will be with us wherever we go. He is the One who is able to keep us and there is no place that we can go that is beyond His reach or His infinite love.
Where do you find yourself today? Wherever you are, His grace is sufficient for you…His power is made perfect in weakness—your weakness. Sometimes (if not all of the time) our self-reliance and arrogance—trying to “fix it” or say, “I got this God.”—is a road block in what God is able to do in us and through us and in our circumstances but when our weakness has humbled us yet again, God can (yet again) have the room to do His work.
Today, rely on the Lord and His infinite GRACE. It is more than enough for you.
Katie Botello
FBC Aztec Member