SUFFERING IN JOY
Being open, real, blunt, and downright honest is something
that’s important to me in communication with my family, friends and even the
everyday strangers I meet. I want to speak in simple honesty but doing it with
love (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). Being real is one of the first things Stephen said
he loved about me when we first met. All that to say it’s been pretty important
to me in my life to speak truth in love.
The way I pray, the way I interact in my relationship with
God is proof. I talk to God like he is my King, provider, friend, comforter,
and inspiration. Because He is all of those things and more. So when I asked
God to humble me, I never understood that I was asking to suffer.
What do I mean by that?
Well with as much grace and love I can muster up in my
writing today I want to tell you all that it’s worth it to suffer. Yes, God
loves you. Yes, we live in a fallen world. Yes, all people sin. Yes, God sent
his only perfect son to die on the cross for our sins. Yes, the only way to
Heaven is repentance and believing in Jesus Christ claiming Him as Lord. But
being a Christian is so much more. If you want to have a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ. If you want to surrender all, it is going to be hard and so
worth it. I don’t mean to scare you but you need to understand the raw facts.
Believing in Jesus is going to be a lot of work, it’s going to create a new
focus in life, it may tear apart relationships and build many new ones,
it’s going to be hard, and you are going to suffer.
Why?
(I’ve been memorizing Philippians and marking up my bible
with the precious truths that come from this book.)
Philippians 3:7-11
says, “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of
Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing
worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I
consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through
faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I
want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation
in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining
to the resurrection from the dead.”
So why do we have to suffer to achieve greatness?
Well you can disagree with me, but I believe this: All human
beings are selfish. Even the most caring person you know can be selfish. Why? Because
we were all born with sin in our lives. And if you want to follow Jesus and
strive after Him you’re going to have to be willing to be broken. Laying your life down at His feet!
Nancy Leigh DeMoss writes in the Quite Place Daily Devotional,
“You and I will never
meet God in revival and experience the fullness of His blessing in our lives
until we first meet Him in brokenness, acknowledging out spiritual poverty-that
we have nothing and we are nothing apart from Him. Our family’s will never be
whole until husbands and wives, moms and dads, and young people have been
broken. Our churches will never be the vibrant witness God intended them to be
until their members-pastors and laypeople alike-have experienced true
brokenness. Then-and only then-will come true blessing.”
By being broken you can attain an even closer relationship
with God. When I prayed for brokenness nearly 4 years ago, I simply wanted to
go deeper in my walk with God. So I prayed for humility. I never realized that
I asked for suffering but I wouldn’t change a thing. All the changes that God has
done in my life these past few years as He has been breaking me, I have been
drawing closer to Him. God’s plan is way better than my own.
As today mark’s Stephen’s 3rd Heaven Birthday I
remember his life and I also remember why I started this blog a year ago. I
started writing to show you that God is good, that everyone struggles in the
midst of life, and that suffering for Jesus is so worth it. God has humbled me
through my sickness and shown me more of His grace through my grief of losing
Stephen. I wouldn’t change a thing.
I think Nancy said it well, “we have nothing and we are
nothing apart from Him.” I am nothing without God. He can stripe away my
selfish cares of this world so I can be totally surrendered to Him. In order to
do so I have to be broken. And in my brokenness I have found joy. Joy in Jesus
Christ.
Jesus is worth it.
Suffering is worth it.
Joy is worth it.
Think about it. Don't you agree?
Much love to all who read and remember God is good, all the
time!
