The Friction of Grace

📖 Journaling insights from Days of Heaven
📷 Photo Credit: Unsplash

Scripture:
"No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it." — Hebrews 12:11 (BSB)

Father,

I won’t pretend—I’ve spent years pushing back against the pressures of life, seeing them as obstacles instead of instruments in Your hands. Some trials have felt unbearable, leaving me weary and longing for an easier path. But You have never been about my comfort—you’ve been about my transformation. The friction of difficulty grinds against my old ways of thinking, and I confess, there are still moments when I want to escape it. Yet, deep down, I know the truth: You are not working against me—You are working in me.

What I once fought against, You are using to shape something eternal. I see it unfolding more and more each day. You take the pressures of life and turn them into power. Just as a storm generates energy, the challenges You allow stir up a deeper dependence on You within me. None of it is wasted. You are not punishing me; You are training me, preparing me, making me more fully alive in You.

So I choose—again—to rest in this truth. When the weight presses down, I will trust You. When I don’t understand, I will yield to You. What seems painful now will yield a harvest of righteousness and peace, just as You promised. You are faithful, and in You, I lack nothing. Thank You for making this real in my heart.

Thank You for Your perfect wisdom. Thank You for guiding me—not around difficulty, but through it. I embrace this process, not as one straining to endure, but as one resting in the certainty that You are already at work, producing in me what I could never achieve in my own strength.

In Christ, I live. In Christ, I overcome.

Amen, Lord Jesus!.