My week has been challenging. I went through more procrastination, more exhaustion, more worries and concerns, and more thinking. Then I buckled down and spent over 8 hours on homework this last weekend and caught up in both of my classes. Yay! I felt a little lighter, but I am still working on the challenges that are looming ahead.
In my bible reading I am finishing Galatians. I felt that here is something I need to think on. And then I spent most of the week trying to remember where it was.
Imagine a great artist creating a beautiful painting that portrays intense joy and peace to everyone who gazes on it. Then imagine purchasing that painting and “finishing” it. Sounds ridiculous, right? How could I (someone who is struggling to draw a cat) add anything of value to a completed painting?
Paul asks the Galatian people the same question. How could we think that we could add anything to the salvation that we have through faith in God? Our belief in God and our acceptance of his sacrifice is what we bring to God. He has done everything else. We need only trust him.
God has given us a beautiful gift. And he continues to gift us with his presence. He works in our lives to do things we could never do ourselves. He aches for us to trust Him, to take his hand and let him help us, day-by-day, moment-by-moment.
Each of us is unique and our challenges are unique. I recently read a book where the characters had different challenges. One lady was ADD and had spent her life overcoming labels such as stupid, lazy and careless. She had carefully built systems into her life to help her perform her duties. She embraced her differences and her challenges so that she could serve others. All of us could learn to let God use our personalities for God’s purposes.
The author says at the end of her book: “I hope you let Him bless you even through those challenging quirks that make you the unique individual you are. My prayer for you is that you hold on to the hand He holds out to all of us, so that He can see you through all your challenges.” Ginny Aiken www.ginnyaikenwrites.com
Galatians 3:3-6 For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!
Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.
