Many friends, family and acquaintances of mine are suffering right now. Death, divorce, drug abuse, alcoholism and familial betrayal are but a few things that people I know and love are fighting at the moment.
I hear of others just outside of my circle who are afflicted as well. Loss of work and home, debilitating disease, dementia, depression, cancer and suicide are among the sufferings of the people who know people I know.
What makes these problems more heartbreaking is that many of those suffering these things don’t know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They don’t know that God’s grace is sufficient to get them through their struggles (2 Cor. 12:9).
Poetry rarely appeals to me, but this poem by John Piper touches something in me that prose just doesn’t reach. Read it three times and then meditate on the words of Jesus, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
What is God’s sovereign grace?
Not grace to bar what is not bliss
Nor flight from all distress but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain
And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.– John Piper
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/not-grace-to-bar-what-is-not-bliss
