We need a big heaping dose of God’s grace today. His grace for the journey! His grace for the road! His grace for the difficult choices, hard decisions of life and the just plain troubles! They come, don’t they? They stomp in uninvited and rudely parade around our little selves making us feel very small in our little worlds. And yeah, Some days, just when we think we’ve managed five baby steps forward, we find ourselves regressed ten giant steps backward, plunged neck-deep in the muddied waters of self and consequences. The enemy is advancing and we can’t see clearly, nor can we swim in what appears to be a threatening situation! The hope, that faintly flickered in the heart, just flickered for the last time and there we wrestle the high waters of bad choices, troubled relationships, financial pressure, addictions, loss and on and on it goes, as we sink lower, yet try to keep our heads above the mud and mire. We feel even God has forsaken us and left us to drown in our circumstances. Oh, but we can know that He hasn’t left us at all.
In Judges 6:11 we find Gideon having a very bad day. He’s threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide grain from the enemies, feeling very discouraged, very inadequate to face the situation at hand and forsaken by God. Sounds all too familiar, doesn’t it?
In this most unlikely moment, God sent him a message, no, not a text and not by phone, but by angel.
THE MESSAGE? “Things are going to turn around for you Gideon. The Lord is with you!” Powerful words for one threshing grain at the bottom of the wine press to stay hidden from advancing enemies or for one who wrestles in high, muddied waters.
Gideon’s circumstances were not lining up with what this angel was saying…and Gideon wasn’t impressed, nor was he hopeful. So he complained to the Angel about his weakness and the hopelessness of the situation, until the Lord Himself spoke.
You Gideon, “Go in the strength in you have and I will be with you. You will defeat the enemy as one man.”
2 Corinthians 12:9 is a promise that we might want to tuck into our hearts for safekeeping……
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12: 7 “So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I asked the Lord to take it away. Each time He said (here’s the verse to tuck away verse 9) “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”
The Lord first served up this promise of powerful Truth to Gideon and He still serves it to us today. Right there smack dab in the middle of our highs and lows! At the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, and In the middle of our difficult choices and tough decisions and when we’re drowning in the muddy water. When the choices are hard and the battle is raging …and you’re exhausted from it all, The Lord says…“Things are going to turn around for you Gideon. The Lord is with you!” ”Go in the strength you have and I will be the strength you need.”
My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”
When the battle is hard yeah, we PRESS ON!!
You’ve been entrusted with gifts from heaven, all ‘little life’, wrapped up and so tenderly placed in your lap. And there you are!! Smack dab in the middle of days that don’t end and nights that don’t sleep. Those gifts of life are yours to cherish, to love, and to nurture, guide, teach and train and when that journey overwhelms your beautiful soul, remember King Lemuel’s mom had some good words of advice for him in Proverbs 31: 10, 17, 25, 26, 28. She told him exactly how fortunate he would be to find a woman of noble character just like you. You may be tired and exhausted but your value is outstanding… “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies…….she sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks…she is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue…Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also and he praises her.”
So you messed up again and this time really badly! God’s offer of grace still stands for that! Thing is, are you willing to accept it? Then just straight out accept it, but at the same time remember He’s not offering grace for a re-run but just for now! We can’t live with the idea that we can redo just because we’re covered by His grace. Yeah, I get it, that some things are just too difficult to g
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 