Are You Being Tormented by the Enemy? God's Grace is Sufficient for You

Have you been going through hardships?

Do you feel like you've been alone in the fire lately?

Has the enemy been tormenting you?

Trust me... I've been there.

In today's episode, we will go over God's grace and how it is always sufficient for us. I will be pairing this with prayer, scripture, and a story time.

First, I want to say a quick prayer: "LORD, I pray that you lift up every single person reading this right now. LORD, I pray that your grace be upon us. I pray that we know that your grace is sufficient for us and that you give us the strength to carry on through every aspect of our lives. LORD, use us as a vessel for your work. LORD, I pray that whatever each person is supposed to receive from this episode, they receive it and implement it in their daily lives. I love You with every ounce of my being. In Jesus' name, Amen."

So first I just want to go into the definition that I Googled on God's grace. So I just typed in "what does God's grace in the Bible mean?" This is what it said, "God's unmerited favor, kindness, and love towards humanity." So, grace is not something that we have to work for. It's something that is freely given to us from God.

Let's go into a little story time... So, a couple of episodes ago, I talked about resting in Jesus, and in that episode, I went over how I had been resting in Jesus, and I was really worried about coming up with content for these episodes. Then the Holy Spirit had given me seven episodes and content ideas for those seven episodes. This is episode number three of those seven. So back a few weeks ago, I had gotten the idea for an episode about grace, and there was a specific scripture that I wanted to go into, but I had no idea what was going to happen between then and now.

So last Wednesday, after I had recorded the episode about treasures in Heaven, I went to church, and everything was good. Mentally, I had been feeling good those past few days. Everything I thought seemed fine. Then, after church, I ended up coming home. Even before I left church, I started to feel a mental breakdown coming on, and I didn't know why. I honestly had no clue why, like there was nothing specifically that had happened that day to make me feel that way. I could just feel myself about to lose it.

So I come home from church that night and I just literally had the biggest mental breakdown that I've probably had in a very, very long time. If you know my story then you know that I've struggled with anxiety pretty much my whole life, and that is something that God has really, really helped me with. I still have anxiety, but I'm able to do a lot of things that I couldn't do before because of the strength of God. I know that He will always get me through everything, and so I haven't had a kind of like freak out like I had last Wednesday night in a very long time. I was super anxious, panicky, and I literally had no idea how I was going to get through those moments. All of my emotions came out at once.

There was a point last Wednesday when I just started screaming because I didn't know what else to do. I had everything bottled up, and I don't know if you've ever felt like this before, but I literally had no idea what to do, and I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I kept praying and praying, and I was like, "LORD, I know you will never leave or forsake me. I know you'll never leave her forsake me." I just kept saying that over and over again. I had been asking God to take it away before I started getting to the point of having a meltdown. I was like, "LORD, I know that this is about to happen. Please take this away. Please don't allow this to happen." Then, when it happened, I no longer prayed to the Lord to take it away from me. I just said, "I know that you will never leave or forsake me." I kept saying it over and over again and I kept being reminded of this verse, which I'm going to go ahead and get into the scripture before I continue my story...

Now let's get into some scripture:

"Especially because of the extraordinary revelations. Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.' Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong." -Corinthians 12:7-10

So, in the middle of my having this breakdown, it feels like it lasted hours, but I'm not exactly sure of the timeframe. During this time of just feeling so tormented, going through this spiritual warfare, and just feeling like I'm losing it, I kept being reminded that God's grace is sufficient for me. I kept saying, "Your grace is sufficient for me. When I am weak, then I'm strong. You'll never leave or forsake me. You're never going to leave or forsake me. Your grace is sufficient for me." I just kept repeating that to myself over and over again.

Paul was an apostle of God. He went and preached the gospel all around, and he was persecuted for the name of Jesus. He did so many things for the gospel and for Jesus Christ. Whenever there was a messenger of Satan that tormented him, he pleaded three times for the Lord to take it from him, but the LORD said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." He didn't take that thorn in his flesh; he didn't make it go away, but he was right there with him. God's grace, his favor, and his kindness were still right there with him. Even in Paul's weakness, God's grace was sufficient for him.God's grace is always available, and it's always sufficient for us. Just because we go through hardships and just because things happen in our lives doesn't mean that God doesn't love us anymore. It doesn't mean that God's just going to take it away if we ask him to take it away. Sometimes we have to just sit in our hardships. Sometimes we have to sit in our torment of the enemy. Sometimes we have to sit in that warfare, and we have to be reminded that God's grace is sufficient for us. When we are weak, then we are strong because Christ's power is made perfect in weakness.

Me going through that last Wednesday night and just being reminded of this passage really made me realize that God is our source of strength. We cannot get strength anywhere else. We can try to do things on our own. We can try to stop it. We can try to use coping mechanisms to help with the anxiety. We can try and get our minds off things. But the only thing that can really, truly give us strength to grow through things is God. He is our source of strength, and he is sufficient for us. He has never-ending grace for us. He loves us unconditionally, and he's always going to be right there with us. It doesn't mean he's going to take things away right away. Sometimes he wants us to just sit in the discomfort. Sometimes he wants us to sit in the hardship, the struggles, and whatever we're facing, he wants us to just sit in it and realize, "God, you will give me strength. God, your grace is sufficient for me. God, I know that you will never leave or forsake me, and you are right here with me even in this and especially in this."

"Then King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm. He said to his advisers, 'Didn’t we throw three men, bound, into the fire?' 'Yes, of course, Your Majesty,' they replied to the king. He exclaimed, 'Look! I see four men, not tied, walking around in the fire unharmed; and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.' Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and called, 'Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants of the Most High God—come out!' So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire. When the satraps, prefects, governors, and the king’s advisers gathered around, they saw that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men: not a hair of their heads was singed, their robes were unaffected, and there was no smell of fire on them."

-Daniel 3:24-27

So, for anyone that's not familiar with this story in the book of Daniel, I'm just going to give you a little bit of backstory before I go into it. So King Nebuchadnezzar had a statue made for him. Starting at Daniel chapter 3 verse 4 it says, "A herald loudly proclaimed, 'People of every nation and language, you are commanded: When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, drum, and every kind of music, you are to fall facedown and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. But whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.” Then starting at verse 12, it says, "There are some Jews you have appointed to manage the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men have ignored you, the king; they do not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up. Then in a furious rage Nebuchadnezzar gave orders to bring in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king. Nebuchadnezzar asked them, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, is it true that you don’t serve my gods or worship the gold statue I have set up?" Starting in verse 16 it says, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, 'Nebuchadnezzar, we don’t need to give you an answer to this question. If the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if he does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.” So these three men were not having it. They were not going to worship the statue that Nebuchadnezzar set up. They weren't going to worship their gods. They were going to worship and serve God Almighty. They said that he would rescue them, but even if he doesn't, they were not going to worship any other gods.

So then that leads us to verses 24 through 27, where we see that there was a fourth man in that fiery furnace with them. That fourth man was Jesus. It really reminded me, after I had gone through that mental breakdown last week, that Jesus is our fourth man in the fire. Sometimes He doesn't take us out of the fire, sometimes He doesn't deliver us from things that we so desperately want to be delivered from. Sometimes He doesn't rescue us right away, but He is always right there with us. If He keeps us in our hardship, if He keeps us in that fire, if He keeps us in whatever trial we are going through, He is going to be that person right there with us, giving us strength to go through, providing everything that we need in the moment. Just like it says in Second Corinthians chapter 12, his grace is sufficient for us.

I know that someone listening to this right now needed to hear this message. You needed to hear this because you're going through a fire right now. You're going through some hardships. Maybe you are at the brink of a mental breakdown, just like I was last week, and you just feel like you cannot handle it. You don't know what to do, but you literally are at your wits end and you have no idea how you're going to get through it. You've been asking the Lord, "Please take this away from me," and He hasn't taken it away. Maybe you feel like God doesn't love you because He's not taking it away. Or maybe you feel like you're never going to get through this and you're all alone because God is not taking this away from you. I want to let you know right now that Jesus is right here with you. He loves you so much, and His grace is sufficient for you. He's never going to leave or forsake you. His power is made perfect in weakness, and you can boast in your weaknesses. I know right now it seems hard. I know right now you don't want to boast in these weaknesses because it feels like it's too much for you, but God is right here. Jesus is that fourth man in the fire. He's right there beside you. He will give you strength. He will provide everything that you need. Just keep holding on. Just stay in this moment with Jesus and feel his presence. I know it's hard right now, trust me, I know that it's difficult. I know you feel like you don't know how you're going to get through it. I know you want Him to take it away, but right now, He just wants you to know that His grace is sufficient for you. He just wants you to stay here with him right now, feel His presence, pray to Him, and let Him know that you know he's never going to leave or forsake you. That you know that when you are weak, He is strong, and that you know His grace is sufficient for you. Let Him know that you don't understand why things are happening the way that they are. You don't understand what's going on, but you know that He's in complete control and you can trust Him completely. I'm telling you, things are going to get better.

After Wednesday night, whenever I went to bed, I still felt very strange, but I kept giving it to God and just saying, "I know you're never going to leave or forsake me" and reciting scripture to myself before bed. I woke up Thursday morning and I felt so much better. I'm going to be honest, about 11 o'clock comes along on Thursday, and I just started having another breakdown. I was actually in the car with my sister. I felt so crazy in my mind. I ended up having a UTI, and that was the cause of a lot of my issues. I don't know if anyone else gets this, but it usually happens in elderly women. For some reason, whenever I get UTIs, most of the time the only symptom I have is that I just start feeling really crazy in the head. That can also happen when it's my time of the month, but that had just passed.

I had to be reminded of these verses on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; it was a struggle for me for days. I did not feel horrible like I did Wednesday night, that was the worst of it, but I definitely went through a few days where Jesus was just in the fire with me. I had to constantly say, "God, your grace is sufficient for me. When I am weak, then I am strong, and your power is made perfect in my weakness." It felt like it was never going to end, and now it's been a week since that happened, and I feel so much better. God has given me so much strength, and He has helped me through it. He has delivered me, and I know He's doing something in my life right now. I have no idea what it is, but I know that He's preparing me for something.

I had those few days in the fire, and God was right there. Jesus didn't leave me. He didn't forsake me. I kept being reminded that He was right here with me and He was not going to leave or forsake me. Saturday, I was praying and crying out to God, and I just kept feeling in my Spirit, "Trust me," and I held onto that. I know that I can trust in God completely. Sometimes, He's not going to take it away whenever we want Him to. Sometimes, He wants us to just go through the hardships. Sometimes it's important for us to just realize that we cannot do this without God and that He is our source of strength. He's the one who gets us through everything. We can do all things through Christ, which strengthens us, but without Him, we can do nothing. Sometimes we just have to sit in our weaknesses and let God's strength be perfected, and know that His grace is sufficient for us, and let Him give us that strength.

Whenever the time comes, He will take away that hardship. He will get us out of that situation. He's never gonna leave or forsake us. We're never going to be able to understand why certain things happen. We're mere humans. We cannot comprehend what God can comprehend. That's why it's so important for us to rely on the strength of God. It is so important for us to stay in constant communication with God, pray to Him, read our Bible, seek His presence, sit in His presence, be still, and allow Him to speak to us. Just know that God is always right here, no matter what, and He's always working. He's always working in our favor, even whenever things don't seem like it, even whenever He wants us to sit in those situations that are not ideal for us. Even whenever we go through these hard things and God doesn't deliver us right away, we can know that He is right here. His grace is sufficient for us, and his power is made perfect in weakness. So we can boast in our weaknesses, because when we are weak, then we are strong.

So I hope this episode helped give you some encouragement that God's grace is sufficient for us. Even though you're going through this tough time right now, God has not left you. He is never going to leave or forsake you. He is right here. His grace is sufficient for you. His power is made perfect in weakness, and He will give you the strength to get through it. He wants you to sit in this with Him, and He's right here sitting in it with you. Just lean on Him, soak in His presence, and let Him give you the strength that you need to get through whatever it is that you're dealing with. So that's it for today's episode. I will see you guys next week.

I love you guys so much.

Never forget to choose faith over fear.

-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)

p.s. If you'd rather listen to Faith-based, spiritual growth, mindset, and mental health tips, then check out my podcast. There I will share my personal experiences, stories I've never told before, and bring you along with this hot mess life of mine. New episodes every week.

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Scripture taken from The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.