Grace That's Enough

I love church.  I love my church, because I see it fulfilling God's will for the church in countless ways.  The world is full of lamentations about people who don't practice what they preach.  Even many supposedly Christian churches are full of hypocrisy.  While no one can live out their faith perfectly, I find countless examples within Racine Bible Church of the word being taught, believed, and applied in ways that truly honor God.

In Sunday school this morning, Todd Kellner taught a lesson on some verses from James 1, including these:

James 1: 2-4 

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

These are verses that most Christians claim to believe.  I think just about all Christians would say that having faith in God is the only way to persevere in trials.  And many Christians even would say that the trials in our lives always have a good result, even if they are extremely difficult as we go through them.  But in everyday life, I don't know many people who, at least outwardly, express thankfulness for the trials that God has placed in their life.

Today, I found one.  I had a five-minute talk this morning with Mary Kullberg. I haven't talked to her in a long time, and I think that maybe that has been a mistake.  

Mary just had a book published last month, called "That's Life at the Barclay - Living with MS."  Mary is wheelchair bound thanks to the disease.  She had to give up a successful school-teaching career about 10 years ago.  This book has come out of 10 years of the progressive worsening of the biggest trial in her life, and I am just amazed at how God has produced a steadfast and more perfect person from such a fiery trial.

First of all, when I complemented Mary on her book being published, she told me what she finds most important about it.  What is exciting to her is not just that she's "on Amazon," as she jokingly said, but that unsaved people have already been impacted by the message of her faith.  She has already heard, she said, of some reading clubs with unbelieving members who will be discussing her book.  

I told Mary how the testimony of her trust in God in the face of trials over the past decade has exemplified James 1 to me.  What she said next really got me thinking.  Her words illustrate so perfectly exactly what it is about Mary that I want to emulate in my life.  She said, "His grace is sufficient."

God's grace is sufficient for her.  Here is a woman who has had to give up some of the best things in life, and who all the while has been confident that God is enough.  Legs that move?  Sure, that would be nice, but God's grace is all that Mary needs.  The ending of the verse Mary started is "for [God's] power is made perfect in weakness."  What if the trials that God wants to use to refine my faith involve giving up my strength?  Could I say with Paul, and with Mary, "Your grace is sufficient for me.  I don't need independence, self-determination, or even the strength to stand.  I just need You."

I said to Mary that if God perfects us with trials, then maybe I want a few more in my life.  And she said to me, "If You ask Him, He'll give you some."  Maybe I better ask.