2 Corinthians 6:4 "...in much patience, in affliction, in necessities, distress."
Grace: unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification
: a virtue coming from God
: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance
* merriam-webster.com
Where would I be without God’s grace? I
shudder to think about that, honestly. As I have shared before, I went through
a dark night of the soul several years ago. Shortly before this period, my
husband and I began ministering to the single young adults in our church. We
had a heart for them, because individuals in this age group do not often find a
natural place in the church body. We were excited about opening up our house to
this group and mentoring them. We definitely felt led to do so, and were
blessed that the group was well attended. Then everything changed.
I slowly began getting sicker and sicker,
and pulling away from everyone and everything. I was changing, and that was incredibly
frightening. My family was suffering, my job was suffering, and my ministry was
suffering. I had been walking with God in some form all of my life.
Unfortunately, when the darkness became so dense that I could no longer hear or
see, I lost my footing and began questioning God. Why, Lord, am I suffering so
when I have walked with You all these years? Why are my relationships falling
apart? Why am I in this prison of the mind and soul? What is the lesson? Why
can’t you hear me? The real question was, why couldn’t I hear God?
Paul suffered so greatly for the sake of
the gospel and in his service to Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 6: 9 after talking
about the hardships he is enduring, Paul writes “… yet we live on; beaten, and
yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich;
having nothing, yet possessing everything.” He could endure all of this because
he had experienced the saving grace of Jesus. His life was inextricably tied to
Jesus. This truth was all Paul needed to rejoice, even in the worst of
situations. He was walking in God’s amazing grace.
I finally did learn the lesson I was asking
God to reveal to me. He allowed me to go through that dark time to draw me
closer to Him; to get me truly alone because I had been too heavily dependent
on others, when really what I really needed was to depend on Jesus. Turns out my
faith was rather weak; I had been focused on the wrong thing for a long time,
for my eyes were not set fully on Jesus. I experienced His grace then, and
always do when I begin to lose my focus or begin to travel down the wrong road.
I would be totally lost without Him.
Chambers says, “It takes Almighty grace to
take the next step when there is no vision and
spectator— the next step in devotion, the
next step in your study, in your reading, in your kitchen; the next step in
your duty, when there is no vision from God, no enthusiasm and no spectator.”
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