One of those weeks

It's been one of those weeks. I wouldn't say it was a bad week, but I also wouldn't say it was a good one. One of those weeks where you oversleep on Monday morning and have to rush to work, and then you feel like the rush doesn't cease until Friday night.

Anyway, in the midst of the chaos this week, one thing kept standing out to me: "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" (2 Cor. 12:9).

I read something on Justin Taylor's blog entitled "What is Sustaining Grace?" that reminded me of that verse, and thought I'd share it with you. It's written by John Piper.

"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."

Sustaining grace. This kind of grace doesn't keep us from all things unpleasant or all "distress." No, instead it's God's grace that forces all trouble and pain under submission to His good will, and sustains the weary soul in the midst of trails or "darkness."

Now thinking on that, that's soul food. No, not the fried chicken and okra kind of soul food. I'm talking about the heart-reviving, soul-lifting kind.