In my last blog I shared that in times of loss God’s grace is where we will find incredible strength of heart, strength of purpose and strength of soul. It’s only God’s grace that can make up for our lack of personal strength in these difficult and often dark times. However, God’s grace is never static. He is always directing us towards freedom, longing for us to pursue our inheritance in Christ.

If we linger in our season of loss longer than we should, Satan knows that prolonged loss and grief will rob us of strength. Satan’s tactic therefore is to help us prolong our times of personal uncertainty and thereby rob us of our joy in Christ. This position will make us vulnerable, weak and exposed. Living in a perpetual state of uncertainty like this, will lead to defeatism and an unhealthy dependency on anything other than the grace of God. Such a position results in us having a diminished sense of purpose about life. However, the good news is, that loss can produce a new level of maturity.

Choosing to stand in God’s amazing grace – that’s not always easy, will require effort and focus. But as we stand, we become empowered by His presence – this amazing grace, to reach a higher level of perseverance that grants us new hope for the future.

Understand this, the person who has hope, has authority and influence!

However this does present us with a personal challenge. That of facing on the one hand, the darkness and difficulty of the unknown, yet learning to live with renewed vitality and gratitude on the other.

For the Christian, God’s grace enables us to take loss and disappointment into ourselves. To be enlarged by it so that our capacity to live life well and to know God intimately, increases. The outcome of pain endured will be the wonderful benefit of our soul being awakened more to God's eternal goodness and love, making it larger and filling it more with His divine nature. This journey of healing will go on until God’s full process of ‘restorative – grace’ is complete. This may happen long after a season of loss or disappointment is chronologically over.

So as we round out this year, let us with fresh determination grasp hold of God’s amazing life-transforming grace, regardless of the circumstances you might have experienced during the year. It’s through such hope in His empowering grace that clarity will dawn and fill our situations with comfort, restoration and a new season of joy.

God longs to start a resurrection and restoration process anywhere there’s been death, darkness, loss or confusion.

As 2011 dawns, be standing in His ‘amazing grace’?