His Grace is Sufficient

2 Corinthians 12:8-10  At first I didn't think of it as a gift and asked God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.  Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.” The Message (MSG)

This is an unedited excerpt of my book soon to be available. 

I remember one day back in May of 2001, I was in my prayer closet, quiet, and waiting on the Lord to speak, and then I heard Him say, “You will stay at your job until November of this year.” I said, “Yes, Lord,” but when the month of November came, I hesitated to obey the word of the Lord. I sought other Christian friends to help me and pray with me about it, but not one of them was hearing what the Lord was saying to me. At that time the Lord spoke again and said that He had not spoken to anyone else about what He said to me only because He didn’t want me to rely on seeking other people’s approval or His word through others when I could be getting that directly from my communion with Him (Romans 1:19-20). He wanted me to learn to seek Him and follow His commands no matter how much I felt out of my comfort zone.

Then He spoke to me another day towards the middle of the month because I was still hesitating to obey His word. The reason was that I had grown used to the freedom of buying what I wanted for my family and for myself as both my husband and I shared the household expenses per an agreement we had made at the beginning of our marriage, so I kept that in mind also as another reason for my hesitation. For this reason the Lord told me that a new season was coming and I needed to be in the right place at the right time in my life to fulfill the next part of my journey with Him. He went on to explain that He had given me His grace (special endowment) to do that particular job for a season and it  had an expiration date which was soon approaching (Romans 11:22).

After much going back to Him in prayer and seeking more of His word for me about this issue, I finally settled it in my heart that it was the Lord’s will for me to quit my job and chose to yield and let Him direct me to my next assignment, thus I submitted my letter of resignation. To my surprise, and also as another way to distract me from following through with the Lord’s command, the Department manager as well as my supervisor expressed their disappointment in hearing about my resignation. Also one of the workers in the Human Resources Department conveyed her sadness to see me leave the company and  tried to convince me to stay. But I knew that God’s word had precedence above anyone else’s and I left the place on the last day of the month because He said that if I stayed, I was going to struggle, and the special endowment and favor He had given me with my coworkers and superiors would change due to the expiration of His grace for that assignment and that season .

I encountered warfare and trouble as I entered the next season in my life, but I discovered that I was in a very important assignment and that was to train my child in the way he should go. He was a toddler at the time. The other part of my assignment was to be trained by studying the Bible, and follow His instructions as a student goes to college to be trained and developed into what is going to bring him or her success in live. In other words, I was being developed in the expertise of what God called me to do to advance His kingdom through my life (the uniqueness of my calling). This will always be truly accomplished when we live a lifestyle of communion with God and of obeying His commands no matter how difficult or unorthodox they may seem (Romans 2:13) because as the Scripture above says, when we feel we don’t have what it takes to accomplish something, God reminds us that He always provides for what He mandates and commissions us to do. He gives us the strength and ability we can tap into as we believe His promises and yield to Him so that He can work in us and through us His plan and purpose at every step of our journey toward our destiny in Him.

This decision to obey the word of the Lord brought many trials and tribulations, that brought me to my knees to pray and to desire more of Him in my life. But He has always been faithful to provide all my needs be it emotional, spiritual, financial, relational, etc., so that I could do my part at every stage of the process (2 Corinthians 9:8). By now I have reached the place where I see God restoring everything that I had lost or forfeited (Matthew 19:29) and my relationship with Him continues to grow stronger for in Him I live, and move, and have my being (Acts 17:28). To Him alone be all the glory.