I ASKED FOR SUFFERING AND I FOUND JOY

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 3^rd 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!