Plumb sings a song that says “How many times have you heard me cry out “God Please Take This”, How many times have you given me strength to just keep breathing, God I need you, God I need you now.”  Have you ever felt the same?  

If I am being honest I have as well.  Even Paul felt that same distress and shared it in scripture to teach us much needed truth.  He had a thorn in his flesh.  The bible does not name what it was, we only know that Paul wanted relief.  He asked the Lord to remove the thorn, to end his angst.  So what happened?  Did our loving Savior deliver Paul, a man who served him so faithfully?  

No, instead he told Paul “My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power (strength) is made perfect in your weakness.”  What? God did not take it away.  No, he didn’t.  Why didn’t he remove the thorn? He didn’t because He had already given Paul grace to endure.  He had given Paul enduring grace.  

We medicate, distract, deny, ignore, or bitterly rage at it, at our thorns.  That is not what God wants for us to do.  He wants us to stop wondering or asking to have it taken away.  Instead he wants us to rest in His grace.  Rest knowing that he can deliver us, but even if he doesn’t he is still good, He is still God.  Sure he can deliver us and sometimes he chooses to show his grace through deliverance.  Yet other times his grace comes in another form.  Enduring grace.  

Grace to praise through pain, grace to walk when weak, grace to worship while waiting/weeping, grace to endure in someone else’s strength, His, and the grace to trust when we don’t understand.  Grace to say “God you are enough for me” when there is only faith and hope to cling to, and no visible answer.  Grace to say as Mary and even Jesus said, “May it be to me as you will” “Not my will but thine be done.”  For in that enduring grace his perfect strength and power is revealed.  All the glory for enduring goes to Him alone.  We do not get to choose our kind of grace, He does.  We get to choose to trust.  We can trust His love, his mercy and yes, his grace, the all sufficient Grace God has given and supplied to us.