I was reminded this morning of a post I wrote over of the Faith Defender’s forum a year ago and feel led to now post it here. There is some good discussion going on below it from other brothers and sisters.
You may be reading this and find yourself in need of a word of comfort right now.
Perhaps you have been severely hurt by your church as so many have been right now, or are going through some tough situations that make no sense at all and you feel like you are up against a wall..
Let me ask you a question.. Do you believe that God is in control of your life – down to the very last detail? Can you trust Him with your life? Are you prepared to trust Him when all is going wrong? Or is Romans 8:28, a scripture that you live by in all situations?
I trust that something in here will reach you to bless you or comfort you, no matter where you are. God’s mercy is both unmerited and available. Not because of you or me, but only because of the finished work of Jesus Christ dying on the cross at Calvary and for no other reason. As we live with Him, so too we will at times, suffer with Him and we are to count it all joy!
His ways and thoughts are not ours…
Isaiah 55:7-9
7 Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the LORD,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
8 “ For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
9 “ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Bless you
Dying to self and suffering, go hand-in-hand
What are the first thoughts that come to mind when you hear the word suffering? Physical hardship? Mental hardship? Emotional hardship, Spiritual hardship? Or a combination of all 4?
The modern church does not believe in suffering at all. One church down the road from me has a regular newspaper and in it they have ‘testimonies’. The general flow is “Come to Jesus and He will give you a job/car/wife/riches/home etc.” “Tithe with us and you will get back from the Lord a Thousand fold, or Come get your blessing”. This modern psychobabble mixed with ‘christian’ type lingo is indescribable which more often than not causes an awful lot of suffering in the long-run across the world.
They attack people by saying they have no faith, that their problems are directly related to their lack of faith or they must have some secret sin going on for all this to be going on in their life. I have seen and heard firsthand such terrible things along this line and seen the devastation brought about by such untrue, callous, ungodly twisting of how God works and lives with us as we walk this Narrow path with Him. It is indeed narrow. Very narrow.
The word suffering can include any of the above 4 scenarios in any perfect combination at different times in our lives, as the Lord needs to use them.
Paul Washer says that the first thing God wants to do to you when you get saved, is kill you.
Hmmm. Sounds completely opposite to what I have been told or have always understood. Dying to self? – Never heard of it! Well you might get to know a little bit more about it if you read a little further.
If we are truly children of God, we will be put on His Potter’s wheel whether we like it or not or want it or not. That’s guaranteed. Also, if we are children of God, we will want be open to anything and everything He has in store for us no matter what. He wants us to be so in Him, that we can, and He will break us and shape us and grow us and then will continue to do this all the way through our lives with Him. He will form His Son’s likeness in us. This obviously will cause suffering. Dying is a painful thing. We want to hold onto ourselves so very much. He wants us to let go and trust Him for His every outcome in our lives, regardless of what we see in front of us right now. Or are we fair-weather Christians only?
If I can explain it like this: I see our lives as a big circle with many wedges making up the circle. Each wedge is a piece of ME that the Lord will ask me to give up. Some are not too bad, others not too pretty at all and some are utterly revolting. As He shows me the next wedge, I first have to and should want to, repent of whatever He is showing me, hand it over to Him in its entirety and allow Him to work in me and my life as He needs to.
As I hand it over and surrender it, HE fills that space and I no longer am the owner. That piece of me has died to self and He is Lord there. Eventually I will have none of me and all of Him. It does not matter how many wedges I have or how big and ugly the wedge is, or how long it takes me to get there, the main thing is that I am willing and obedient to surrender all the wedges to Him as He brings them to my attention.
This simple explanation I share above, should be going on every day all day quietly in the background as we learn to die more each day and walk more and more in Him
Once we understand that this is how God works, we can simply live in Him and let Him lead the way and bring whatever He wants into our lives and deal with it both with Him and in Him, which brings about a really true understanding of Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
If our lives went so smoothly, without a hitch, without a dark cloud, we would not even have any knowledge of having a need of God. He keeps us at times in a certain place where we are so broken and prostrate before Him until we really understand and know that we could not lift our heads or take another breath without Him giving it to us. He does this out of love. Our faith has to be and will be tested. Sometimes we have to walk forward blindly, having only His had and Name to cling to.
Our eternal state is so important to God. His love is very, very different to ours. He is looking to eternity in His love and will do anything to keep us in His vision and Him in ours.
Suffering is an absolutely necessary part of our walk.
I would like to leave you with the following Scripture:
James 1:2-4 (NKJV)
2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.I understand that some people may react against much of what I have written. If you perhaps do, then I humbly ask that you prayerfuly and honestly take it before the Lord and ask Him to show you the truth of this.
In the Love of Jesus
John 3:30
He must increase, but I must decrease.
Hello Steph!
This was very encouraging to me. How I admire your ability to write and wish I had it!:) But God has given this gift to you so that we all may enjoy it and be uplifted.
This was encouraging to me because it reminded me of something I read last evening; A.W Tozer’s The Saint Must Walk Alone. The first time I read it was when you referenced it in a comment at Mike’s a few months ago. I felt like I had found a friend in that chapter! Relating this to suffering or one’s cross…the wedges in our circle that the Lord requires of us, people, other christians… is very hard but He is showing me it is what He requires if He is to be first. There is so much to distract me from Christ.
He wants all from us and wants it freely from us. Our trust and faith is that He will not overwhelm us with too much “wedge removal” at one time, will not leave us in a state of despair and will change our old desires into His desires. So great is our God that He does this for us-He does it, His work, our surrender.
Praying that God would place more love for Him in our hearts, more love for the Truth so as to more fully know Him. Lord, teach us what it means to “acknowledge You in all our ways.”
God bless you.
Hi Diane
‘The Saint must walk alone’, was such a wonderful eye opener – it brought immense comfort to me too.
The circle and the wedges I shared here, the Lord gave to me as a means to explain how it works, and I know I could never have come up with this on my own. It has helped a few folks where I live to grasp a solid understanding of how God works in us. The Lord is so immeasurably kind.
Regarding your word usage of despair – I believe that we each have to come to a place of despair -a place of worldly despair, where we truly see that “I can of myself do nothing” as Jesus said in John 5:30. God will spend the rest of our lives as we walk with Him, slowly removing out our independence from Him and replacing it with an utter dependence, as it was in the beginning before the fall.
The quicker we learn to submit and surrender to Him as He takes us into each daily situation or circumstance, the quicker we learn to let go of our independence. It is that independence, which is rooted in pride, is what slows us down and deprives us of more with the Lord.
We need to be taken to a place with the Lord where we are so submitted to Him, so surrendered, where we can honestly cry out to the Lord, “Lord, I want to miss out on nothing you have for me in this life – no matter what it is – whether it is going to cause me pain or not. Just do it all Lord. Have your way in me.” then reach out and ‘take Him by the hand’, set your face as flint and move forward with Him.
Bless you Diane and thank you so much for your lovely, comment and your willingness to share your heart here.
Yes, I understand exactly what you mean. Your statement “the quicker we learn to submit…” that is what I meant by His not leaving me in despair. I am praying for a teachable spirit so that I can learn quickly. This is my faith, hope and trust in Him– that whatever He takes me through or removes, no matter how seemingly terrible, hurtful or even illogical it may be, He will succeed in working what He needs to work in me. He cannot fail! (Even if it takes a very long time.) That is the hope I have of not being left to despair in my circumstance or situation.
I am praying for more faith to believe Him and am especially praying for God to show me His truth so I won’t be deceived. Learning about all that is claimed in the name of Christianity these last 4 years is new to me, and I am amazed at the quantity of different gospels and teachings and movements that even I, as a new believer with no experience and very little knowledge, can see what they are or at the very least question them and wonder why others, even pastors that I know, do not. And no one seems to want to talk about what is true and what is false…according to their biblical definitions. And that is all I want to talk about and learn about. So, other than my wonderful husband, I have been praying God would send people to me to teach me.
But I have definitely experienced despair in myself because things were not working out as I had planned, and then God showed me the idolatry in my life and saved me 4 years ago. He certainly was sovereign in my salvation as I was not seeking it—I wanted more idols to worship! What gratitude I have for Him that He had other plans for me.
Thanks!:-)
Bless you!
Amen Diane and you are most welcome!
It is amazing how often we have our ears tickled with people wanting us to do what they want, rather than hearing the Word of God.
We are not promised wealth as the world would think of it. We are promised love and discipline. But we are also promised God will be there for us, with us – and for that I give thanks.
Hi WBMoore Amen! and thank you for your comment
Hi Steph,
Your reposting of this message came at a very opportune time for this reader. My Lord is indeed killing me as only He can. It seems to me He takes the things we tell Him, then works it out in us. It’s okay to believe in something that is true but another thing altogether to move, walk or live in the thing we believe, yet it is the only way to determine that we DO believe.
I can and have told Him I want Him more than my next breath. It’s not untrue. Still, when my breath is hard to find, it shows me what it is I’ve told Him I could do without comparatively. Coming up short of breath for no discernible reason is scary! So, what then? Do I stop telling Him that a very important need for my life is now more necessary than I thought? Do I decide He’s mean to take me at my word? You’re a mean, mean Lord and I follow You no more!
All these trials do besides the very necessary molding required of us, is to let US see who we are, where we are and, if we do not run away, bring us to repentance before Him.
I thank Him every day for allowing me to see Him more clearly and know Him in greater and greater truth. Yes, sometimes He does pour a lot on many wedges at a time.There is so much coming down upon my ‘wedges’ that I can do nothing but sink down under the weight of it all. But then, does He not tell us to “be still & know”?
He is glorious and He is ours.
God Bless You.
Hi Phil4:8
How wonderful for you that you are going through this, and as painful as it may be at times, you can truly rejoice in it and know implicitly, that the outcome of it will be His.
It is quite a thing to see yourself as He sees you when He is so generous and kind enough to show us. You might want to take a look at a poem called My Mirror
Bless you too and thank you for sharing your walk with me and all who read, here.
Be so encouraged!