God's Amazing Grace

1 Who can believe what we have heard, and for whose sake has the LORD's arm been revealed?2 He grew up like a young plant before us, like a root from dry ground. He possessed no splendid form for us to see, no desirable appearance. 3 He was despised and avoided by others; a man who suffered, who knew sickness well. Like someone from whom people hid their faces, he was despised, and we didn't think about him. 4 It was certainly our sickness that he carried, and our sufferings that he bore, but we thought him afflicted, struck down by God and tormented. 5 He was pierced because of our rebellions and crushed because of our crimes. He bore the punishment that made us whole; by his wounds we are healed Isaiah 53

I 'am a sap for faith stories.  It is in those stories that I see God's grace being woven into the person. I use to believe that the bigger our faith means the more we will be blessed materially and economically. I use to believe that if we are diligent in taking our children to Sunday school and worship together as husbands and wives before the Creator of the universe each week that nothing bad will ever happen to us.  After all, bad things only happen to those who are not faithful and do not attend church.  Right?

Wrong! My thinking began to change shortly after our loss of our daughter in 2007. It began to change as I began to see God's amazing grace being woven into our family's fabric.  It isn't the size of our bank account, the number of toys we have in our garage, nor is it the size of our home that determines the size of our faith. Job lost everything in his life. He lost his family, his possessions.  He had afflictions that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy; yet, Job realized that the only thing that truly mattered to him was his faith in God and he continued to honor God through the hard times, through the afflictions, and while he grieved the loss of his children.

Even today God is still working amazing stories into peoples lives. There are people around us that have gone through some very difficult circumstances and life threatening illnesses where God continues to be painting little grace stories. 

 At we enter our own afflictions we may feel that God has abandoned us, or that he doesn't love us, but by listening to other peoples powerful faith testimonies we begin to see that we haven't been abandoned and God really does love us.  Although we wished the one we lost was still here with us we have the assurance that because of what Jesus did on the cross for us we can grieve with hope that one day we would see our loved one again.

I hope you are encouraged watching this brief video about a gentleman who continues to have faith even as he faces  his own horrible affliction.  May you begin to look at your own life in a new way as a story of God's own amazing grace!