God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times,
having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:8 (NIV)
Life opens up, options beg for attention, vision catches its second wind, energy is restored, and emotions experience a lift when you push past what you are experiencing and let God remind you of what you can expect.
And what exactly can you expect? God says you can expect that you will have what you need when you need it. Where will it come from? It will come out of the total sufficiency of Christ, who is able to give abundant grace out of that sufficiency to you. He is able to let that kind of grace flow in your life because He lives in a sufficiency that is eternal. He lives with such generosity of grace that you can trust Him when He makes this promise to you: whatever you are about to experience, regardless of the size or demand or threat, He will extend favor to your life to make sure that you have what you need, when you need it, in order to get things done.
Does that promise change how you think concerning what you're being required to face or motivated to walk towards? Does that infuse you with the will to fight through tough times and to face the demons that are raising their ugly heads? I'm sure, like me, you feel emotionally drained by toxic news about so many different things that it's hard to catch your breath. Listening to the divisiveness and corruption and absence of decency all around us can make you believe that there's nothing to feel hopeful about. But we must let God take us across the bridge and walk us up to the peak of the mountain to get a wider angle.
On the summit of that mountain, you can see things not only through the lens of your experience, but through the lens of what you can expect. You can filter all of the trouble and chaos through these words: “God will make all grace abound towards you so that you have everything you need to accomplish every good work.”
This one reality—God’s sufficiency of grace—gets far too little attention, but I'll tell you what it does: it sparks our faith and infuses us with the energy and the motivation to move forward.
