This is an encouragement that is expanded from  Ch. 3 in our FREE Living Grace and Family Grace workbooks (personal or groups), "God is bigger than our weakness."

• Jesus reveals “weakness” is where God desires to respond

• God is in our weakness, grace sufficient is Jesus himself

• God is bigger than our weakness means He is closer than we think

We look for blame, God looks for grace.

With the story of the man born blind, the disciples are curious if his or his parent's sin is responsible for his blindness (a common way of thinking at the time ... unfortunately still today; John 9:1-7).

Jesus reframes it from sin to a grace response ... "neither he nor his parents, but an opportunity for the power of God to be displayed/manifest in his life."

In our Living and Family Grace workbook (Ch. 3) we use this story and other helpful points to look beyond stigma to see God restoring dignity and purpose ... even in weakness. Point three says,

"Mental health difficulties do not hold God back from working in our lives and the lives of our loved ones ... He desires to reveal His constant love and grace in our whole lives ...our entire journey."

God is displayed in Mother Teresa's Darkness. 

The Resiliency Exercise (Ch. 3) highlights Mother Teresa's story, revealing how God displayed Himself in/through her life. Many know her relentless faithfulness to Jesus and her global work among the poor, sick, and helpless. But she struggled within. She writes ...  

"There is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started the work." (Mother Teresa)

Is her life an example of dealing with an unmovable dark thorn and of what Jesus said to Paul? ... "My grace is sufficient ... my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). 

But if we look ahead in v. 9, Paul reaffirms to this sufficient grace as Christ’s power dwelling in him. He’s addressing a “withness,” union, and togetherness in the ongoing struggle. The point here is that though God often seems or feels silent in our pain and trials (especially mental health challenges … personally or for our loved ones). However, when we say God is bigger than our weakness, we’re really saying …

God is bigger IN our weakness … dwelling in us … sojourning with us toward His loving goodness.

This is to help see Jesus reframing grace to something more sufficient than willpower faith, and NOT looking for the sin-stigma reason ... "in Christ," we're helping people rewrite a new story.

Joe Padilla | Grace Alliance