Our All Sufficient God
“GOD WILL GIVE YOU GRACE NECESSARY
TO ENDURE ALL SUFFERING.”
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my grace is made perfect in weakness.”
II Corinthians 12:9
Can I get a testify? I can give one regarding His all sufficient grace.
Not long ago a spent five weeks in the hospital suffering from the compounding of five fatal diseases at once: sepsis, staph infection, two blood clots in my lungs, pneumonia, and recovering from a heart valve replacement. To top it off there was a major virus which made the bottom third of my face look and feel like one large fever blister. Most of this I was not conscious enough to know of for a few days. One doctor said he left the hospital three nights thinking ‘he will see Jesus tonight.’ There were times I thought I very well might.
Nights were especially torturous. Needs were often unmet.
One doctor told my wife to find a long term care facility for me to go to upon being discharged. She said, “He won’t like that,” and the doctor replied, “He won’t know it.”
Writing this is not an appeal for sympathy, it is a testimony of God’s grace. I am not trying to be sensational, I am just acknowledging His sufficiency. I am not the hero in this story, God is.
He was with me. No, there was no apparition, no phantom vision. There was simply an awareness of His presence. I was strengthened by a knowledge that He who promised He would never leave me had not. I flooded my mind with Scripture and reminded Him of His promises, as though He needed reminding.
He brought me through that hospital stay and a long way on the road to recovery. There still is not a day without pain, but He has not promised to immune me from pain or exempt me from problems, but He has promised to be with me, to bless me, to strengthen me, and He is doing it. Remember we walk by faith, not by sight or feelings.
My dear friend, Jerry Clower, wrote a book the title of which says it all, “Ain’t God good!” The resounding answer, “Yes!”
Forget about my experience, but don’t forget the theme of it:
“God will give you the graces necessary to endure all suffering.” II Corinthians 12:9