Every Grace - 2 Corinthians 9:8

And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8 CSB

Some fathers ignore their children. At best, this kind of man rushes out to work and, when he get home, takes care of his own needs and comfort. Sometimes, he looks up to pat the kids on the head.

Does God treat me like that, or does He walk with me, take care of me, and make my path straight?

Okay, that's an easy answer. He loves. He is love. He is a good father. 

That love involves testing too. These tests make me.

And in this testing, sometimes, God seems like He ignores me. 

He does not ever ignore me. 

He is much more like that gymnastics coach who has his hand underneath my back the first time I try to do a backbend on a balance beam. I might not even be aware his hand is there. Yet, when I falter, when I slip, He is right there.

He is fully able and engaged. 

And He makes grace OVERflow to me. Overflow. There is no lack. He doesn’t hold back on what I need. See, in every way, I always have everything I need.

I am reading this like I’ve never seen it before. Every way. Always. Have Everything I need. How can I even begin to absorb these words. What miraculous power for me, a regular guy!

But see, He is not raising me up to be some pampered socialite.

No, He prepares good and wonderful work for me to do.

On my own, I would never sign up for these life challenges. Hey, I would never have studied Algebra if they didn’t tell me I had to do it!

But the challenges shape me. He is the potter; I am the clay. He makes me.

Look at Moses. He grows up royal. Pampered for 40 years.

Then, for the next 40 years, he shepherds smelly sheep and goats.

God gives Moses exactly what he needs to be able to deal with the Egyptian courts and the Hebrew people. Forty years and forty years.

He is eighty years old when he confronts Pharaoh and says, “Let my people go.” God prepared him. And there was no possible way Moses could have figured out in advance what God had planned.

Yet, it’s obvious that He made every grace overflow for Moses to make sure he was equipped to do the miraculous. He set Moses up for excellence. And Moses excelled.

God does that for me too.

And it hurts. I get angry. I get depressed. I think I don’t matter to God, yet it is just the opposite. 

The decades Moses sweat with the sheep in the desert, God worked in him. He worked a masterpiece.

God works in me too. Today. That I may EXCEL in EVERY GOOD WORK!

That is my heart’s desire.

Lord, you are the God who gives grace to His children. And You make it overflow to me that in every way, I may have everything that I need. That I may excel in every good work. I trust you are doing that in me today. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.