The Greek word for ‘grace’ has two popular
meanings. One is the most popular meaning the ‘unmerited gift’. The word has
another meaning, ‘enabling’.
In Christianity salvation through Jesus Christ
is grace, unmerited gift. Salvation through Christ is enabling too.
Apostle Paul was suffering from some problem
about which the scripture is not clear. May be that Paul did not want to talk
about it in detail. He says that he did pray to Jesus to remove this problem
from his life. But he always received the answer, ‘my grace is sufficient for
you.’ Grace here is ‘enabling’. Paul was telling that he had God’s enabling to
bear the problem. That is not alone. Paul was receiving the assurance that
God’s enabling will strengthen him to go forward fulfilling his life purpose in
spite of the presence of the problem his life.
That is real grace, the ‘enabling.’
I find no good in the strength for bearing
problems in this life. We need the strength to overcome the problems. ‘Grace’
is the strength that enables us to overcome problems.
There is an old saying: "Be thankful for
problems. If they weren't so hard, someone with less ability might have your
job!"
This saying is a positive statement. It tells
us to be thankful for problems because if they were not so hard the job would
have been slipped away from us. This means we have the strength to overcome the
problem.
Problems are a thrill and they are a task for
us to complete. Problems demand not our failure but their deliverance. Problems
are not enemies come to beat us, they are petitioners requesting our ability to
solve them.
Problems are like a patient with an unidentified
disease. The patient meets a doctor not to defeat him, but for a cure from the
disease. The patient is not an enemy of the doctor; he is a supplicant before
the doctor. The doctor never hates the disease or the patient. For the doctor
it is his time to prove him a success.
The positive thing about a problem is that it
not only makes use of our enabling but also enables us in return. Every problem
finally proves that we can do it. Every problem enables us for a harder
problem.
What taught us to walk better? It is failure
and failure. We fell and fell again. At last we learned to stand well, step
forward and walk easily.
Every failure enables us to walk better.
Enablement is better than external help.
Getting up alone from a failure is better than somebody lifting us from a fall.
When we fall our first feeling will be that of total loss. Then we look around
for a way to get out. We give it a hard try to jump out. Thus we overcome the
fall. Such a fall and a little larger cannot keep us in the pit for long again.
We have overcome it.
It also taught us to avoid pitfalls in our
life. We are taught to keep away ways and alleys that are full of deep holes.
We have learned something that many others have
not yet heard of. It is enabling.
Remember the Chinese proverb that says, it is
better to teach a person to catch fishes than to give him freely a fish.
A free fish will quench his hunger for a time.
Enabling him to catch fishes is a life support.
So cheer at your problems!
Professor Jacob Abraham
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