2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”

If you have never watched Charlie Wilsons war, you are missing out. It stars Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson, a long-time state representative from Texas. Though Charlie is not the fiercest fighter of the people, he takes on the task of helping the people of Afghanistan fight off the Russians. At the end of the movie he is celebrating with a CIA agent and talking about what a great thing they just accomplished. The agent responds he is not so sure it is a great thing and tells the following story. “A Zen master who observes the people of his village celebrating a young boy’s new horse as a wonderful gift. “We’ll see,” the Zen master says. When the boy falls off the horse and breaks a leg, everyone says the horse is a curse. “We’ll see,” says the master. Then war breaks out, the boy cannot be conscripted because of his injury, and everyone now says the horse was a fortunate gift. “We’ll see,” the master says again.

When we look at our own lives, we have seen this pattern. Things we think are blessings are actually cursing. Things that seem like bad luck, turn out to lead to great things. It is because we don’t know how things will turn out, so it is difficult to see good results from bad things. God knows this and reminds us of something that won’t change, that is the grace God has for us. It is sufficient for us, so we need not rely on anything else. As we move closer to Christmas let us be reminded of the grace, we have in Jesus Christ knowing it is sufficient, perfect, and unchanging. Amen