Accepting God’s Grace

Dorothea Shields

July 7, 2025

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians about a personal struggle he had. The result was that God refused to remove the difficult "thorn in his side," but instead offered grace to empower him to endure and perhaps even overcome the situation.

God offers His grace to us too, but it's up to us to receive it and walk in it. Our wills can resist what He offers because we want to be released from our difficult situation. That difficulty might be, and probably is, an instrument God's using to promote growth and maturity in you. Our Father uses difficulties to build endurance and faithfulness in us.

Our flesh wants to escape the hard and uncomfortable things! That's why we turn to entertainment, drugs, alcohol, and similar vices. We want an out, and we want it bad. But let's face it, sometimes our situations cannot be changed or escaped. If we're being honest with ourselves and God, we shouldn't escape them; instead, we should face and endure them. 

I don't want to oversimplify or minimize loss, tragedy, or trauma. But even in those extreme situations, God's grace—His empowering presence—is there to help and sustain us.

Many times, we resent our present circumstances and seek an escape from them, but if we are to be changed as God wants us to be, then we must accept His grace, which is sufficient. When we decide, "Not my will, but yours be done," we come to another level of surrender, refining, healing, and maturity.

Friend, today, choose grace.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10- “Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”