Sufficient Grace

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My  strength is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NKJV)

This world does not like weakness.  You will never find even a devout Christian praying, “Lord, make me weak.” We tend to shun both weakness and the people who exhibit it.  The daily twin prayer  request  many of us make  is for “health and strength,”  the two ideas fitting together neatly  into our desire for  the good life. “Strong” and “strength” occur a lot in our prayers. Check on yourself for a week and see how true this is.

Weakness is not part of the vocabulary of the work-a-day world either. It’s not admired.  Employers don’t look for weak people to fill positions in their companies, be it even for the  lowliest job. In the academic world, promotion is based on strength of performance, not on weakness exhibited.  And in the world of sports, it’s strength all the way from high school into the professional arena. So when  we meet a text such as the one we have for today, we’re hesitant to embrace it.  But the Apostle Paul is teaching us that  a weakness may be something that Christ  can  use to bring  Him honor. It certainly worked for good in Paul’s case. He had an impediment, a weakness that he prayed about three times. I can imagine  his fervent, wrenching prayers, but instead of immediate healing, he received  the words, “My grace is sufficient for you.” Why?  It may be that weakness does not matter with God.  He can use us in spite of our weakness,because His perfect strect strength surmounts all.  That was how it turned out for Paul.

If we, like the apostle, abandon ourselves to God, our weakness may be just the thing that can bring God glory and keep what seems like an  unfavorable situation from destroying our faith. When I realized that my second son was autistic and his condition would not simply go away with strong prayers to God, I taught him to say, even with  his impaired speech, “My grace is sufficient for you,”  and together we embraced God’s promise  and were blessed to experience my son’s  observable improvements  and the strengthening of my own faith in God.

Whatever our  personal weakness may be, let us submit it to God and accept  the power of His unlimited, sufficient  grace to work within us and through us to make us strong.

Always,

Judith

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In God’s garden of grace,
Even a broken tree can bear fruit.
Rick Warren