The young woman has a body that is wracked and riddled with pain. My grace is sufficient for you. The aging minister no longer can communicate either by voice or in writing due to a stroke. My grace is sufficient for you. The young man who relies heavily on drugs to get through the day, wants desperately to stop, but just can’t. My grace is sufficient for you. You can add one or two examples for yourself, can’t you?
My grace is sufficient. It seems so hard for those mentioned in the examples, and it seems so hard for us as well. We are hanging out every day in a hallway. Nothing new has happened. No breakthrough. No new clinical recommendation. No new speech therapy recommendation. Nobody is calling to suggest we schedule an appointment. Stay put is what we are hearing. Wait. Be patient. My grace is sufficient for you.
What does it mean anyway, this grace that is supposed to be sufficient? It means that God chooses to display His power in us by sustaining us in our weakness. Throughout scripture God makes it clear that we should have a healthy fear of the Lord. So, when we are weak, when we are broken, and when we are weary, that’s when God’s power shows up. On the surface this verse does not make sense. God could deliver all of us of “our thorn.” Easy and quick. Instead, he leaves us in our crippled state and says, “my power is made perfect in weakness.” And when He decides, then His mighty power shows up and He gets all the Glory. God loves to deliver his people when the stakes are the highest and the odds are at their worst.
This forces us to trust only in God and to look to Him for our hope. And, to permeate our days with this thing called–Grace. We are enjoying the heat of the summer. We are taking long bike rides. We are lounging beside the pool, reading some good books, and taking in the sun. We are golfing and enjoying a special shot here and there. Chris has at least two on every hole. He’s getting really good.
This thing called Grace is not a person, not something we merit, but something God alone can give. It feels pretty good hanging with Grace. Max Lucado says, “Grace is God’s best idea. His decision to ravage a people by love, to rescue passionately, and to restore justly–what rivals it? Of all his wondrous works, grace, in my estimation, is the magnum opus.”
Let’s start the day with this beautiful rendition and it just might stick with each of us all day!
Refrain:
Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus,
deeper than the mighty rolling sea,
higher than the mountain, sparkling like a fountain,
all sufficient grace for even me;
broader than the scope of my transgressions, sing it!
greater far than all my sin and shame.
O magnify the precious name of Jesus, praise his name!
