Daily Manna · Day 18 · January 18
Sufficient Grace
“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
A man is on the floor of a rented room, asking for the third time that the same thing be taken away, and what comes back is not a removal. It is a sentence.
Watch what he does with the no. He does not absorb it and move on. He boasts about it. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. The whole passage is praise, and what is being praised is a strength that does its finest work where it has least to work with. My strength is made perfect in weakness: brought to full expression at the exact point where the man runs out. That is not a consolation offered to somebody who lost. That is a claim about how God has chosen to be seen, and Paul decided it was worth keeping the thorn to see it.
Consider what kind of power this is. It does not require your competence as a platform. It is not embarrassed by the part of your life you would leave out of a testimony. It has never been strained, never been near its limit, never had a close call. Three times a man asked and God said no, and the no was not a boundary on the power. It was the power choosing its stage.
The promise stands in the present tense, which is the detail to keep. My grace is sufficient for thee. Not will become. Is. Sufficient means enough to cover: reaching exactly to the edge of the need, and no further, and no less.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 18 is In His Image (Genesis 1:27).