The Fullness Of God In Affliction

“I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV) 

How do the afflicted walk in the fullness of God? It is a good question and I wish I had a quick and easy answer for you, but the truth is that sometimes it is all I can do to crawl in the minuscule things of God, much less to walk in His fullness. 

Very often the daily battle of affliction gets in my way of being the better person I want to be, the more spiritual person I want to be. I seem to do better in my spiritual walk when I’m not constantly stubbing my toe on one affliction after another. True, I probably pray more when affliction is worse, but I also get moodier, angrier, less patient, more frustrated, and generally “less spiritual.” 

If it all depended upon me, I’d be a spiritual wreck. Thankfully it doesn’t all depend upon me or you. We are not facing life and the particular obstacles of affliction alone, we face challenges, difficulties, and this horrible business called affliction with the Lord beside us. It is His goodness, His mercy, His kindness, and His fullness that enables us to walk spiritually rather than just crawling in the dust of affliction. 

Walking in the true fullness of God is walking in the knowledge that Jesus is the Lord of our life, His Spirit dwells in us, He comforts us in affliction. Because He is, we live, we breath, we love, and have a life worth living that does not depend upon how good or bad we are feeling, but upon how good He is and who He is and that we are His. 

Rest in the fullness of God through knowing the person Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of everyone who calls upon His name. When we fall down, too often our focus is upon our inabilities rather than His helping hand that is there to lift us up. When we turn our eyes upon Him, and turn our hearts toward Him, we become better than we are, greater than our afflictions, because we know the One who has given everything for us. Jesus is the fullness of God, and we live in fullness when we live in Him. 

Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to keep our eyes upon You, and not upon our weaknesses and inabilities. Fill our lives to the full with Yourself. Amen. 

Karlton Douglas 

Copyright 2017