Sharing the Burden of Suffering
Often in our seasons of suffering when we have a moment to
even lift our heads off of ourselves we look up to find others seemingly doing
great! They look as though their relationship with The Lord is thriving or that
they have it “all figured out.” I am finding that is not so. Chances are, if
you were to really dig past the casual “Hi, how are you,” you would find many
peoples typical response of “good” is masking a deep sigh somewhere within.
Suffering is not always the case, there are seasons of great
success and joy! There are many seasons
of triumph and victory which are essential parts of our walk with the Lord. These
peaks create part of the natural undulation found in our walk with our savior;
however, today lets discuss the troughs.
Trough :: wasn’t our savior born in one? Haha
He was born in a barn, with animals, I could imagine him
being cradled in some rectangular bucket thing that was used to hold water
(water trough), dumped out, filled with hay and linens and put down to rest
that first night. I don’t know the details but just imagine with me. We as
Christians have not been called to a glamorous life! The sooner we learn that
the better, and the sooner we learn to embrace the suffering as a gift from
God, the sooner we will impact our culture.
Let’s all wipe the fake smile off of our faces and be real. Please.
Especially those of us in the younger generation, we have been trained to sniff
out what is genuine and authentic and what is counterfeit. So let’s try not to
be the obnoxious happy “Kumbaya” singing Christians that we so easily can be. Be
genuine, be authentic, it’s attractive. People are drawn to real people. “Jesus
grew in favor with God and man”, it doesn’t say Jesus grew in favor with God
and his cute Christian bubble friends. He said Man, as in all humanity, that we
would be able to connect with all people and influence all people. Be in the
world BUT not of it.
What is this Suffering I am talking about? The definition of
Suffering is “The state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.” So any time
you are feeling that maybe for a few weeks, months, etc. You could probably say
you are in a season of suffering. We suffer from the Lord, as he is teaching us
and refining us, stripping us of ourselves. Sometimes we undergo suffering because
of consequences from our sin. Who knows what the root is or why it is happening
but we all experience this season. It is a beautiful season that will produce
much fruit if we let it!
I once heard someone say that hurt is hurt. It doesn’t
matter how bad it is. It doesn’t matter if someones hurt was “worse” than
yours. It causes the same pain. We need to understand that in order to support
one another through seasons of suffering. We cannot judge one another when
dealing with hurt or pain, we need to extend grace to one another and be
patient in working out our suffering. So what do we cling to when we find
ourselves in hard times? I have found three things to be true.
We find strength through seasons of suffering in three ways:
Jesus, our peers, and elders who have walked through similar trials before.
We have an incredible savior. Jesus, who feels every single
feeling we have ever felt. He sees the depth of the brokenness and despair
inside of our hearts. He knows. He weeps with us, he mourns with us, and he
rejoices with us. Find strength in the Lord! We can have confidence that he
sees the struggles that we face on a daily basis. He sees the war waging
between our flesh and our spirit! “Therefore, since we have a great high priest
who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the
faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize
with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as
we are – yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with
confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time
of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16 We do not have a King, a “ruler” who is unable to
empathize. How incredible is this? The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords
knows exactly how we are feeling in times of trials, or suffering, or
temptation. We have a God who relates to us.
Recently there was a situation in my life where everything
seemed very broken, now maybe I was overreacting, but things from my small
perspective were looking pretty bleak. I remember just telling The Lord, “it’s
all broken, what are you going to do about it?” I wasn’t challenging God in
this question I was genuinely asking him, how is this going to be fixed? The
answer I received was not what I expected. Surprise, surprise, The Lord didn’t
answer my question the way I thought he would. He simply said to me, I FEEL all
the brokenness. I know how you feel. I am with you.
In that moment, The Lord was with me. He always is, but I
realized when he is with me, he rejoices when I rejoice, and he mourns when I
mourn. (Romans 12:15) I was comforted and The Lord wants to comfort us all. So
would you let him? When you feel like breaking down and crying, cry to him!
When you feel anger, shout out to God, He will interpret the cries and groans
of your heart. In your anger do not sin, turn to the lord and he will refine
those feelings, calm your spirit, and teach you His ways.
Now here is the tricky thing about going to Jesus. For a lot
of us, that is the last person we want to run to when we have failed. Isn’t it?
Don’t worry you aren’t the first one to try and hide your sin and shame from
the Lord, humanity has been doing it since Adam and Eve. But seriously don’t we
do this often? We mess up and for some reason we feel unworthy to go sit before
the Lord all the sudden, when in reality, it’s just because you messed up in a
way that feels “more bad” than you usually do, so then we want to hide?
Is this making sense? We categorize our sin, if we would be
honest with ourselves there are some sins that we tolerate more frequently than
others. Yuck! So because we sin in a way that is “worse” than our normal sin,
we act like we aren’t good enough, but that is rooted in pride. It is rooted in
pride because we think that for some reason WE and OUR actions allow us to
enter the throne of Grace with confidence. When we mess up, all of the sudden
we read Hebrews 10:19 “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with
the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us
from a GUILTY conscience..” and we think the blood of Christ was shed for
someone else. “That’s great God, but you don’t know what I have done.” “I
messed up and I should have known better” “Let me just punish myself from not
entering into your presence for a little until I get MY MESS figured out and
THEN once I am all put back together I will enter the throne of grace with my OWN confidence.”
Brothers and Sisters this should not be! Haha I feel like Paul
saying that.
We have confidence in Jesus when we don’t have confidence in
ourselves! That is the point of all this, it’s not about your good works it is
about Jesus Christ’s GOOD WORK! The good work he did on the cross! One good
work, it was finished. We need to shake off our shame and guilt and come before
him as we are, broken, and let him fix us. Learn to have Confidence in the Lord
not in yourself!
I want to bring forward an Idea here quickly as well. The
high honor it is that we get to suffer with Christ.
Right above the verse Philippians 1:29 Paul is contending
for people to conduct their lives in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. That
we would be a people who strive together with one faith, and stand firm in The
Spirit. That we would be a people without fear when others oppose us. You can
read it for yourself. But then it goes on to say “For it has been GRANTED to
you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to SUFFER for him.”
Wow. We are called to suffer for Christ. We have been given (granted) the
opportunity to partner in Christ’s suffering advancing His kingdom and gain a
marvelous inheritance.
Lord, would you teach us to view suffering from your
perspective. That through the seasons of trials and testing we would be able to
stand confident in you. Jesus strengthen your people who are called by your
name to find joy in seasons of despair. Would you enlighten our understanding
to the suffering we go through WITH and FOR you!
(So this was a little encouragement on how to face suffering
with the strength of Jesus, but I am going to post more on facing suffering
with peers as well as looking to elders who have walked through hard times
before to find hope!)
