I have a lot of today's reading underlined! I guess the primary suffering of Christ was the abandonment of His own will and total submission to God's will. Our individual suffering along those lines may manifest itself in different ways. O.C. uses a practical example of suffering by having to deal with a certain type of person. My mom told me (and I tell my kids) that if God brings a "difficult" person into your life, you best learn how to deal with them, or He'll keep bringing just that type of person until you do learn!
I also like where he says "men have sought to procure the carrying out of God's order by a short cut of their own." One of the things I struggle a lot with is why God seems to work so slowly. I like action and quick results, and God is forever slowing things down. I have finally come to terms with the fact that the slower pace is necessary because He has things He desires to teach me along the way.
And the last paragraph from the reading is awesome. If we know what God is up to (or think we do) we become spiritual prigs. Amen! Do you guys have examples of "luminous places" where you finally understood something you had gone through?
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
2 comments:
Just this weekend, I was talking with my son, John, who is preparing to deploy to Iraq. In trying to make the most of every moment, I asked him about what in his life had made the Lord real to him... from head knowledge to "heart knowing" and he quickly mentioned a difficult time he endured during his soph. year of college. I was amazed and humbled and had a luminous moment as I saw a result of the work God was doing that I wasn't aware of. I remember how angry I had been over the mistreatment and the fact that he was used as an "example" to other students in leadership positions, yet again, what man might have used for not so loving purposes, God used for John's good. PTL! He is faithful whether we "see" it or not and in spite of what others who are in authority do concerning us.
Something I read by C.J. Mahaney once put suffering into perspective for me: “In your own times of severe distress, which are you more aware of – your suffering or your salvation?….What the Puritan Thomas Watson recognized will always be true for us: ‘Your sufferings are not so great as your sins: Put these two in the balance, and see which weighs heaviest.’ We can rejoice in our salvation even amid great affliction when we recognize how much worse we deserve because of our sins.” How many of us think like this in our suffering and look to the One who can comfort us because He completely understands any suffering that we go through because He went through so much more?
Post a Comment