January 7th, grace denied and supplied.

Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God, X-1422.

The need for inner strength arises not just from the depletions of everyday stress,

but from the suffering and afflictions that come from time to time and they do come.

Suffering is inevitably added to heart-wearingness on the way to heaven.

When it comes, the heart may waver, and the narrow way that leads to life may look impossibly hard.

It's hard enough to have a narrow road and steep hills that test the old jolapi strength to the

limit, but what shall we do when the car breaks down? Paul cried out three times with this

question because of some affliction in his life, he asked for relief from his thorn in the flesh.

But God's grace did not come in the form, he asked. It came in another form.

Christ answered, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness,

2 Corinthians 12, 9. Here we see grace given in the form of Christ's sustaining

power in unreleaved affliction. One grace given, we could say, within the circle of another grace

denied, and Paul responded with faith in the sufficiency of this future grace. Therefore,

I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

2 Corinthians 12, 9. God often blesses us with a grace given in the circle of grace denied.

For example, on a beastly hot day in July, the water pump on our cars stopped working,

and 20 miles from any town we were stranded on the interstate in Tennessee.

I had prayed that morning that the car would work well, and that we would come to our destination safely,

and now the car had died. The grace of trouble-free travel had been denied.

No one was stopping as we stood around the car. Then my son, Abraham, about 11 at the time said,

Daddy, we should pray. So we bowed behind the car and asked God for some future grace,

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