Suffering

Today Daddy says, “I choose you”.

Why?  Not for my extraordinary athletic abilitiesJ

No. For your heart’s cry.

Daddy, I feel like I’ve been living a little numb for a while.  So painful to watch the suffering all around me of situations I can’t change.  I think of these “impossible” situations and feel the pain, but go on.

With hope?

Not always.  It’s like The Shack, the great sorrow he lived in that kept him from being truly present with his family, with church, in friendship.

So what did I do for Mac?

You invited him back to the scene of the crime, the awful place of remembrance, to face the sorrow head on, stare at it and unload all that he had been bottling up inside, including railing out at you.

And I just loved him through every stage.

Daddy, what about me?

Come walk with me.

OK, but please show up.

I’m here.

OK.

Jesus carried my sorrows.  Isa. 53:4 So why am I still carrying them?

Yes, why are you?

What about Col. 1:24? It talks about completing your sufferings.  Wasn’t your suffering enough?  Didn’t you suffer so that I wouldn’t have to?

“I can even celebrate the sorrows I have experienced on your behalf, for as I joined with you in your difficulties, it helps you to discover what lacks in your understanding of the sufferings Jesus Christ experienced in his body, the church.”

So we labor with the sufferings of each other to help one another discover what lacks in our understanding of the suffering Jesus experienced for us. 

Col. 1:26 “There is a divine mystery—a secret surprise that has been concealed from the world for generations, but now it’s being revealed, unfolded and manifested for every holy believer to experience.”

The secret surprise – who doesn’t love surprises?

And here’s the surprise: “ Living within you is the Christ who floods you with the expectation of glory! This mystery of Christ, embedded within us, becomes a heavenly treasure chest of hope filled with the riches of glory for his people, and God wants everyone to know it!”

“Christ is our message! We preach to awaken hearts and bring every person into the full understanding of truth. It has become my inspiration and passion in ministry to labor with a tireless intensity, with his power flowing through me, to present to every believer the revelation of being his perfect one in Jesus Christ.”

Me, your perfect one?

Yes, and now your assignment is to remind your brothers and sister that Jesus calls each one of us “his perfect one in Jesus”.

So yes, we labor and suffer for one another, “contending for you that your hearts will be wrapped in the comfort of heaven and woven together into love’s fabric.  This will give you access to all the riches of God as you experience the revelation of God’s great mystery – Christ!”

So I midwife.

And I allow others to assist me in my own labor.

It’s what the Church does.

To present to every believer the revelation of being his perfect one in Jesus.

Contending for one another so that our own hearts will be wrapped in the comfort of heaven, and woven together into love’s fabric.  One bolt of heavenly fabric.