Your Grace is Enough?

^"9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." -- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Wow.  God tells us right there, "I'm all you need.  Stop trying to do it by yourself."  So why do I still try??  

I guess it's probably human nature to try to fix things for yourself.  It's just something we do.  If something breaks, we fix it.  If there's a problem, we fix it.  We have a terrible habit of relying on ourselves and no one else.  But when we have a problem with our spiritual life, try as hard as we might, we can't fix it.


I try and I try to do things myself.  Try to fix my attitude, be nicer to my sisters (even when they get on my nerves), resist my temptations, blah, blah, blah.  The list goes on and on.  Everything's fine for a while, but when I do it myself, the problems always come back.  We (I) need to realize that we can't do it by ourselves... only God can do it for us.  We need to give our weaknesses to Him, and He will make us better.  After all, His "power is made perfect in weakness."


But the thing is, it's hard to trust in a something you can't see to fix you.  This is the thing I struggle with most, just not being able to see Him.  Not being completely assured that He's there.  Especially in the rough times.  Don't get me wrong... I know He exists and that He's there for me, but sometimes it seems like nothing's happening.  And completely committing yourself to something you can't see is tough!


God asks us to completely surrender ourselves to Him.  But I'm still trying to figure out how to do it.  When will God's grace become enough for me?  Honestly, right now I don't have much figured out... I'm still trying to get a grip on my relationship with Jesus.  And it's really hard to give everything over to Him.  But I love Jesus, and, by giving things over to Him one at a time, He's strengthening my faith.

 ⁵ "Then I let it all out;
      I said, "I'll make a clean breast of my failures to God."

   Suddenly the pressure was gone—
      my guilt dissolved,
      my sin disappeared." -- Psalm 32:5 (Message)

 "My guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared."  Praise the LORD, O my soul!

Forgiveness

The title of this post is forgiveness, as you already saw.  Forgiveness is such a fantastic thing to think of.  When you forgive someone, you're letting go of all the pain they caused you, and saying, "it's ok.  I still love you."  But you still remember what they did to hurt you.
But here's the fantastic thing about it: We still remember it, but God doesn't.  I can't even wrap my mind around that... the total forgiveness. Totally forgetting what happened... just imagining God saying, "it's ok.  I still love you."  And there's no way He can love you any less, no matter what you did.
So here's the thing:  I was just stuck in my faith for a long time.  Like Matthew West's song "Going Through the Motions".  I was just going through the motions of being a Christian.  Reading my Bible, singing in church, going to youth group, and not really changing anything in my heart.  But then I realized that God TOTALLY forgives.  He's totally forgiven all my sin... no matter what it was.  I thought that God couldn't possibly love someone like me... I do too many bad things, and He's too perfect.  But He does!  Isn't that Awesome??
As Relient K's song, "Hope for Every Fallen Man", goes, "Don't give up it's not the end, there's hope for every fallen man to pick themselves up when they think they can't, because with every passing second comes a second chance."  Hope for EVERY fallen man. :)