Devotional Reading Plan

Amazing Grace

When my producer and I began to write the songs for my gospel album, “Testimony,” he came up with the idea to redo a couple of standard gospel songs. I have loved the song “Amazing Grace” since I first remember hearing it as a child. We decided to do it but update it and make it more personal for me.

As we were working on the lyrics, I began thinking of subject matter and began to ponder in what ways the Lord had shown me His grace. I remembered the scripture in which Paul says he was suffering from what he called a “thorn in the flesh.” Paul said when he asked the Lord to relieve him of the problem the Lord had responded, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in your weakness”--2 Cor. 12:9a. Then what came to my mind was how I felt years before, when I awoke sick with a bad cold one morning.

Feeling terrible, I got out of bed but could not get ready to go to work. I was weak, had a fever and chills and was aching all over. After calling my job to say I was sick and couldn’t come in, I went to my bathroom looking for something to relieve the symptoms and make me feel better.

I found a name brand cold remedy that I knew to be very good (Contact) and began to take it. By that evening I was feeling somewhat better. I took a dose before going to bed.

I awoke in the morning feeling soooo much better. I got up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and got ready for work. When I arrived at work, everyone was surprised to see me. I just said, “that stuff works miracles.” Well, right after lunch the medicine suddenly wore off, and I felt so weak and so sick that I wondered how I had ever made it to work. I was sent to the nurse and immediately back home. It took me nearly a week to completely get over that cold.

As I lay in bed recuperating wondering why I had felt so good the morning before, I began to pray. I asked the Lord why I had felt so good the day before although I wasn’t well. I thought, “I’ll bet that was the devil making me think I was well, just so he could snatch the rug out from under me and make me feel even worse.” But the Lord quickly made me understand this had been a lesson in how His grace works.

You see, the medication I took had relieved all of my debilitating symptoms so that even though the illness remained, I was able to carry on as though the illness did not exist for me. This is how God’s grace works. This is what He did for Paul. Even though the Lord did not remove the thorn from Paul, as Paul would have liked, He gave him His grace so that Paul could carry on doing the Lord’s work unhindered.

He’s done it for me time and time again and He’ll do it for you. We must remember that He says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."--Isa. 55:8,9

So when you’re going through something that is really getting you down, whether it is something physical, mental, financial or whatever, the Lord might not immediately remove the problem as you would like Him to do; but by His grace, He will enable you to get through it. We must trust that the Lord is using the situation to work out something more that you are not aware of. Perhaps He’s building your character or preparing you for something else that will come your way down the line. We don’t know; but the key word is “trust” in the Lord--that He knows and wants only what’s best for you, and His grace is sufficient for you.