“My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in
weakness” (II. Cor. xii. 9).
God allowed the crisis to close around Jacob on the night when he bowed at
Peniel in supplication to bring him to the place where he could take hold
of God as he never would have done; and from that narrow pass of peril
Jacob came enlarged in his faith and knowledge of God, and in the power of
a new and victorious life. He had to compel David, by a long and painful
discipline of years, to learn the almighty power and faithfulness of his
God, and to grow up into the established principles of faith and
godliness, which were indispensable for his subsequent and glorious career
as the king of Israel.
Nothing but the extremities in which Paul was constantly placed could ever
have taught him, and taught the church through him, the full meaning of
the great promise he so learned to claim, “My grace is sufficient for
thee.” And nothing but our trials and perils would ever have led some of
us to know Him as we do, to trust Him as we have, and to draw from Him the
measures of grace which our very extremities made indispensable.