I have close friends who are recently widowed, getting biopsies and taking chemo, learning to use walkers and canes, wondering if life and travel as they knew it are over, wondering, “Are doctor appointments all I have left?”
We need something, but we cannot manufacture it ourselves from what is left of us.
We need God’s grace to finish life, to complete our calling. We need God to make a way and show us a new way of life that glorifies him and fills us with contentment and joy.
Grace can have a broad definition. It means, “God’s undeserved favor,” but beyond that, grace is also who God is and all he does. Grace is his work in us through Christ and the Spirit.
The grace of the Spirit
In Sunday school recently, we studied a Scripture that says the Holy Spirit will infuse believers with wisdom (1 Corinthians 2). We can receive the Spirit—amazingly so—to the point that Paul says, “We have the mind of Christ.”
After personally having 16 infusions of chemo, I loved the idea of having infusions of the Spirit. The Spirit is life-giving and animating, the fountain of life who flows from God and Jesus. The Spirit brings to our remembrance the truth of God and guides us to deeds of ministry and missions.
The Spirit comforts and heals our spirits when our spirits are open wounds—open to the touch of God himself.
It is not easy to talk about our vulnerability. Often at church, we do not show woundedness. We want to look good and present ourselves as God’s “success stories,” knowledgeable, prosperous and attractive. Some of our churches look for the most attractive and successful people to lead the church, as if God needed a talent agency to choose his servants.
But we can rest assured everyone needs God’s Spirit. We never should be surprised at the degree of separation from God that anyone—even a pastor or leader—can choose or fall into. The sins of others never must shake our faith, for we know we are human and dust, all with the sin nature and tendency to sin.
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Grace in all circumstances
When the Bible says, “Weep with those who weep; and rejoice with those who rejoice,” (Romans 12:15), we understand everyone has times of weeping and times of rejoicing in their lives.
We have weddings and divorces, love connections and breakups, births and deaths, times of wealth and times of want, times of depression and times of elation at the blessing of God. Life is all of this—miracles and tragedy.
“I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances,” Paul wrote (Philippians 4:11).
He often wrote as a greeting or goodbye: “Grace and peace to you, from God our Father.”
Grace, enough for today, leads to peace—the contentment Paul referenced. Grace for today is enough to move forward, to take the next step in life God shows us.
The Holy Spirit—sometimes called “the Encourager”—helps us move on with life. The Sprit’s comfort has an objective, a goal—that we persevere with fortitude, face truth and follow God in the present circumstance, that we praise God and bring glory to him.
God’s ever-present grace
Scripture is such a wellspring of truth. At times we may feel overwhelmed with all God is, does and how he works in us. How can we take all this in? How can we handle it all?
We start now with open hearts to receive the filling of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, and we continue life in the circumstance God has placed us.
We can be open to God and other Christians about our emotions as we ask God’s healing. We move forward in quiet times alone with God and in times of fellowship and worship—even worship at home via television if we are homebound. Any place can be a place of grace, worship.
Any home can be a mission field—your living room, the rehab center, the nursing center. Any place can become an altar for prayer or a pulpit for teaching. The seminary is not the only place that has “the chair of fire” for preaching. God works everywhere.
If you are in a place of suffering and worried for friends undergoing hard times, be encouraged through the Holy Spirit that God is with you. His grace for today is enough. His grace will enable you to take the next step in life. He will carry you.
God’s boundless grace
When I was younger, I loved the Holy Spirit and saw him as the one giving great power in preaching and missions. I spent years in ministry watching the Spirit work and feeling his warmth in sanctuaries of beauty and holiness. He was the key to success in evangelism and true worship.
Now as an older adult, I see all this and more. I depend on his comforting and encouraging side, because I need that. I need him.
God is perfect, personal love. He has so many dimensions that meet our needs and fulfill his will. God is beyond dimensions we could fathom. He is all and in all. We are the people of his possession, bought with the blood of his Son.
God is enough. His grace for each day, along with his promised presence, is enough to see us through our weakness of body, mind and soul. He will provide the encouragers and helpers we need, especially the sweet, peaceful, powerful Holy Spirit.
Ruth Cook is a longtime Texas Baptist. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.
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