Have you ever had one of “those” days? You know what “those” days are right? The days when everything goes wrong. I feel pretty confident in saying that we have all had those days. We forget to set our alarm clock or hit the snooze button and wake up late for school or work. We have a new shirt or pair of pants on and we spill something on it. We are helping plan a surprise birthday party for someone and we accidentally send a message to the person being surprised instead of the person helping plan the surprise (I said it was a bad day didn’t I?). Maybe our spouse said something that hurt our feelings, our children said something that hurt us, we had a rough day at work, or something else. The possibilities of what makes us a bad day are literally endless. They are not fun to go through, but they are nevertheless a part of life. Therefore, we better learn how to deal with them or we are going to continuously be in a bad mood.
The apostle Paul battled something in his life. What it exactly was we don’t know, but Paul called it a “thorn in the flesh” a “messenger from satan” in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul says that he prayed three times for God to remove it. Have you ever prayed that your day would get better? God gave Paul an answer. That answer however was a “no, I won’t remove it.” Now it should be noted that we don’t see where God said “no” but we can certainly understand that was God’s answer by what He did say to Paul. It is found in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Does that seem harsh to you? Here is Paul, a man who loved God and was doing his work, and when he asked God for help, God said no. It’s not harsh. I think many times we confused God giving us what we want with His love for us. In our minds, if God answers our prayers the way we want, He loves us, but if we don’t get the answer we want, He must not love us or care about me. We need to understand that God is not a genie that we can rub a bottle, Him pop out, and give us whatever we want. God may not have answered Paul’s request the way Paul would have liked, but God did give him something that would help him deal with his “thorn in the flesh.” God gave Paul enough grace to deal with what he was going through. God said His grace is sufficient. In other words, ______ (insert your name) all you need to deal with what you are going through is My grace. Before we discount God’s grace like “wow I needed this, but God gave me His grace.” I want us to understand how powerful that grace truly is. Grace is powerful enough to meet our deepest need as humans and save us (see Eph. 2:8). God’s grace is powerful enough to help meet whatever we need we may have, that is what it means to be sufficient. God’s grace is everything we don’t have, but what we really need. You are having a bad day, God’s grace can give you the strength to get through it. You are going through a rough time in life, maybe you lost a loved one, you are having marital or family problems, work problems, health problems. Literally whatever your problem is God says, “My grace is sufficient.” I don’t know what you are going to, but I encourage you to surrender yourself to God and His grace, it is all you need. From the smallest problems in life to the biggest need for all humans (the need for forgiveness and a Savior), and every problem in between, God’s grace is sufficient.
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him