As a digital artist I enjoy exploring new techniques, trying different styles, and learning new tools. One area I would like to get better at is three-dimensional modeling. It’s been hard to make progress. My time with it has been limited and my training inconsistent. I feel like I take one step forward, but then fall back two steps. Have you ever failed at something again and again? Do you feel powerless at times to achieve a goal or to resist a temptation? Are you wary about the future? You are not alone in these struggles. God is on your side. Don’t beat yourself up or give up hope. Instead receive his grace to heal your brokenness, strengthen your weakness, overcome temptation, and experience peace in uncertainty.
Although you may feel unworthy of God and his blessings, understand that he created you, he loves you, he knows you, and he will help you. King David of Israel wrote of this truth in Psalm 139. “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well…You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways” (Psalm 139:13-14, 1-4). For those who ask, seek, and knock of him he gladly gives his grace through the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:9-13). During difficulty this grace is sufficient enough to sustain you and powerful enough to give you victory (1 Corinthians 12:9).
God’s grace is available where your need is greatest. The shining example of the life-saving power of God’s grace is Jesus. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8). You don’t have to strive to better yourself so God will accept you. Jesus can forgive your wrongdoing and impart his righteousness. You don’t have to solve your circumstances. Jesus can provide a way through your them. Full of grace and truth, Jesus has brought God to you and you to God (John 1:9-14). He has conquered all your enemies: disease, destruction, death, sin, and Satan. Trust him as your way, your truth, and your life (John 14:6). Salvation is found nowhere else.
In your darkness, Jesus shines. “The Son [Jesus] is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3). “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). At the intersection of God’s eternal purposes, his divine blessings, and his precious love for you stands Jesus with open arms. Run to him in faith and never let go. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Receive God’s grace in Jesus and you’ll experience his glorious design for all you are to be and do. Then extend that grace to others so they can come to know God also.