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My Grace Is All You Need
My
Power Works Best In Weakness
Scripture
“My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
Observation
The
Apostle Paul suffered with some type of physical ailment, he called it a “thorn
in the flesh” we do not know what it was. We do know that Paul prayed and asked
God to remove it, but God said, “no”.
We
don’t know the reason why but many times God doesn’t fix the things that slow
us down, He does not fix things that may cause us to limp, or even the thing
that causes us pain.
My
“thorn” in the flesh and your “thorn” in the flesh (if God has allowed you to
have one) have a purpose.
As
most of you already know, I have a messed up, quirky, damaged heart, and not a
day goes by where at least some discomfort in my chest, extreme fatigue, or
erratic/crazy heart beats don’t remind me that the thorn is still there.
It
was last April exactly one year ago since the last time my heart when
completely crazy. I was throwing a cast net off the Skyway Bridge trying to
catch bait. I was fishing with my brother Rick when my heart went into ventricular fibrillation. I threw the cast net
over the bridge rail, looked down as the net was going into the water and the
next thing I knew I was on the pavement looking up at my brother and he was
asking me if he needed to call 911.
When
my heart goes into V-fib like it did last year there is absolutely no warning
at all. I just drop. Within seconds this condition causes sudden cardiac
arrest, which unchecked causes sudden cardiac death (in a couple of minutes).
Fortunately because I have a defibrillator/pacemaker implanted in my body it
shocked me bringing my heart back into rhythm and me back to life on planet
Earth!
Let
me quickly say, and sorry for boring you with all those details, “my thorn” is
nothing compared to what other people endure. My health issues are minimal
compared to so many of you and what you experience.
One learn for me: with a “thorn in the flesh” your “Ego”
takes a beating - you can’t do what you used to do and what you used to do so
easily now takes so much more time and energy.
So what are we to do if we find ourselves in the
Apostle’s Paul’s situation?
We do as the Apostle Paul did and we pray and ask God to
heal us. If God chooses to leave the thorn and He does not remove it, if God
chooses not to heal us, then we do as the Apostle Paul did. We continue to
serve the Lord the best we can and let the power of Christ work through us. We
don’t give up!
Application
I
will focus on what I can do today and not live in the past. How about you?
Prayer
We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
I pray that this blog encourages someone who is experiencing a “thorn in the flesh” this morning. Give them strength Lord. Help them to bring You glory in the midst of their pain and suffering.
Daily Bible Reading: 1 Samuel 13; 1 Chronicles 2,3; 2 Corinthians 12
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