God often reveals to us His power, the miraculous that makes us stand in awe & adrenaline rush with complete amazement. Healing, mountains moved, dreams & visions, chains broken after years of slavery, deliverance, and what seemed like unreachable souls coming to faith in Christ. Power! It can strike undeniably.
What sometimes isn’t as easy for me to see, however, is the merciful work of Christ teaching me about His sufficiency. Which, is just, if not, more a display of His power. This seems to happen in the less “glorious”, the day to day, sometimes painful & grueling of times. When I ask for what I believe may be a touch of His power & the Lord chooses to answer in a more powerful but maybe less desirable way. Instead of removing the weakness, pain or hardship; He may choose to leave it in our lives in order that through our weakness/pain/hardship, His strength would be made perfect. That we, may then have to lean desperately close into Him, drawing ever so near to Him as He promises to draw near to us. And in that, something most powerful happens, a deeper Knowing of our Creator, intimacy so deep its unexplainable.
As we trust in His sufficiency day to day & through it all, we enter into a transformation that forms us more & more into His very image! From one degree of glory to another. Is there anything more powerful than that?! Us, dust of the earth, broken vessels...being transformed into the perfect image of Christ Himself! As we walk through this life, we must remember, oftentimes the refining process can only happen through life’s fire. In the end, our faith will be refined and purified as something way more precious than gold. And His power through that, Im convinced, is more powerful than our eyes can fathom seeing this side of eternity.
(2 Corinthians 3:17-18) "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
(Ephesians 1:18-19) "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might"
(1 Peter 1:6-7) "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
(2 Corinthians 12:9) "But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."
- Audrey McElveen