Still Thinking...on Suffering, Pt 1

It's been two weeks since the Summit (can't believe it) and I finally have a quiet evening to reflect.  I just reread my post of Nov 6 called "The Gift."  I wrote that during the Summit.  We all had gotten into a conversation about pain and suffering.  This subject, actually, has been on my mind for about a year now.  Wrestling with it.  Pondering it.  Living in it.  Surviving with it. 

Having rolled around in my brain all that we had discussed during the Summit about the subject...I think there's some thoughts to be added to that Nov 6 post.

I've just finished the book "Let Go" by Francois Fenelon and am now in the middle of Jeanne Guyon's classic, "Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ."  Curiously, I've had these two books for years, but have just in the last month started reading the two of them.  AND...wouldn't you know...they both address the subject at hand:  Suffering.

I still agree with what I wrote back on Nov 6.  I believe that nothing happens to us without first being sifted through God's hand.  And, if you believe that basic truth, then you must accept the reality of suffering.

Guyon talks about being abandoned completely to the Lord.  It is "devoting the present fully and completely to your Lord.  Abandonment is being satisfied with the present moment, no matter what that moment contains (learning to dance in the rain*).  You are satisfied because you know that whatever that moment has, it contains--in that instant--God's eternal plan for you."

She goes on to say that we should not blame man for anything.  No matter what happens, it was neither man nor circumstances that brought it.  We must accept everything, except, of course, our own sinfulness, as having come from the Lord.

"Surrender not only what the Lord does to you, but surrender your reaction to what He does."

Ok.  This is where most Christians get hung up.  Our reaction to the suffering that comes our way...how we respond.  This is what's been buggin' me this past year.  If I believe as His Word says, that He holds me in the palm of His hand...covers me with His wings...so loved the world...then I have to believe He is intimately aware and involved in all things that come into my life. 

As Guyon says, I must...

"...utterly believe that the circustances of my life, that is, every minute of my life, as well as the whole course of my life--anything, yes, everything that happens--have all come to me by His will and by His permission.  I must utterly believe that everything that has happened to me is from God and is exactly what I need.

Let it be said here and now:  you may be certain there will come to you an inward spiritual advancement when there is also in your life a real progress in knowing the experience of the cross.

Here is a true spiritual principal that the Lord will not deny: God gives us the cross, and then the cross gives us God."

So how do we treat suffering?  Or to put it as Guyon does, "how do you respond to the Lord's working of the cross in your life?"

THAT is the question of the hour, isn't it?  Am I hunkering down, wallowing in my dark pit waiting for the storm to pass or am I dancing in the rain?

*my comment

Pictures from the 2011 G3 Summit

Our wonderful gathering place

Our Study Table

One of our Lessons

Lunch at The Dove's Nest in Waxahachie! 

Sunday Lunch

2011 G3 Summit

Today's Prayer

Dear Lord,
"I have no idea where I’m going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end…

The fact that I think I’m following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please  You does in fact please you…

And I know that if I will do this You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Thoughts in Solitude

Thomas Merton

The Gift

It is the rare Christian who looks at suffering as a Gift.  I can probably count on one hand the number of Saints that I have encountered who see suffering in this way.  And, I have come to believe they've discovered the truth about how to achieve and maintain the authentic Christian life.

The usual reaction to suffering from those of us who follow Christ is that of disbelief that such a thing could be happening, frustration with God that He would allow such suffering, and self-pity--allowing Satan to drag us into the pit of despair where we wallow in darkness and the false feeling of abandonment.

But if we remain open to God...open to receive His teaching through the suffering--how much power and wisdom would we bring to His sheep having borne that cross and experienced God's strength and grace?!

If we were to remain closed and resistant to the suffering...staying in our pits of despair and incessantly asking "why," what good are we afterwards to His sheep?  We are bitter, wounded beyond healing and thus of no use to God.  Oh, how He wants to use us!  How He wants to mold us into the likeness of His Son.

Going the way of the Cross is not easy.  But if we say we are followers of Christ...with that comes the cross.

Can we ever get to the place where, like Peter, we say, "Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test your quality, as though something strange, unusual or alien were befalling you.  But insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, rejoice, so that when His glory is revealed, you may also rejoice with triumph. (I Peter 4:12-13)


Can we ever get to the place to consider suffering a "gift," knowing that the Lord is testing, teaching, refining, shaping and molding us into His likeness?  Can we receive it as a privilege?  Can we welcome it, embrace it and with God's peace that passeth understanding...endure, knowing that we will be stronger and wiser in Christ on the other end of it?  And thus be able to effectively and wisely "feed His sheep?"

Lord, push me to not sit in the pit of my despair waiting for the storm to pass, but teach me to learn to dance in the rain!  To receive my suffering as a gift, accepting it in humility knowing You feel I am worthy of it.

And in receiving it, knowing, as Peter says, "that after I have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, Who has called me to His own eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself complete and make me what I ought to be, establish and ground me securely, and strengthen and settle me."  (I Peter 5:10)