The Sufficiency of Grace

I’d like to start by saying that I’m an idiot.

I’ve already written about the fact that I’m a runner. Not in an athletic sort of way, but in a when things get tough I want to run sort of way. And for some reason I use my workouts as a way to articulate my desperation and confusion. Which I’m fairly certain is the opposite of what God wants from me.

Also, I’m not fond of the word blessing because of how Christians tend to over-or-misuse it. But you’ll see it a bunch in this post, because I need it to make my point. I know, random. But this is me.

So a few days ago I started thinking about the people that are close to me that are suffering right now. People that are not asking for extravagant things, just things that lots and lots of other people have and probably take for granted. Things that come so easily for some, like jobs, or babies, or good health.

So I took to the Fairview Park stairs with my same dumb habits. The fierceness of my workout must make a difference. It’s like I’m trying to punish something or someone because of my frustration, so I take those 102 stairs, two at a time, the stairs like my faith-questioning-punching-bag, over and over until I’m breathless and crying. I’m punishing something all right…me. Nothing else. A feeble attempt.

Idiot, right? But maybe not completely, because in all that sweating and heart pounding and heart breaking, I had an epiphany. Or maybe just an epiphany to me, and for all of you it’s a no, duh.

Because some of us will ask and ask and ask for these things and God will eventually say yes and we call them blessings. But some will ask and ask and ask and that thing continues to be just outside of our reach. God says either no or not yet, and yet they see the blessing. They don’t miss what he has for us; the intimacy, the mercy, the grace when we sit with him, and trust. And wait.

I want that.

That faith, that’s not necessarily without question, but trust in his promises, no matter what they look like for us, today, in this moment. And that’s who I’m writing about today. Those that don’t miss the blessings he has for us when he says no…but sit in his presence and wait.

I don’t want to be the person that runs and runs in a ridiculous attempt to somehow take on the pain of the world, but to listen to him when he says: simply sit with me. See me. Hear me. Trust me. I see you, and I know.

My grace is sufficient for you.

Those who believe in his promises, no matter what they are, and sit and wait for the possibility of that baby or that job or that healing, and in the midst of the waiting they find sufficiency in God's mercy and grace. I want that.