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Sowinig blessings and life lessons to encourage, refresh, and benefit our lives.
Are you suffering on the road to salvation and love?
There will be times on our journey when we feel as
if we can’t move another inch, but God wants us to
know that His power is made perfect in our weakness.
His grace is sufficient for us, today!
In the midst of hardship, let us remember that God's
grace is sufficient. No matter what our difficulty may
be, God's grace is able to reach beyond the obstacles
that hinder us from being who God wants us to be,
those unseen forces that are against us, and the pain
we have endured.
God is able to give strength to the weary, and increase
the power of the weak and worn. In times of weakness,
during times of hardship, and persecution... God is still
God. God is able to reach us and carry us through our
affliction. God is able to restore our life to freedom
and the fullness of His joy.
May we confidently lay our burdens at God's feet
knowing that God's grace and power is made perfect
in our weakness. Therefore, let us delight in God's grace.
May we be strengthened by God's grace and power,
today and always.
Why are the innocent victimized?
Why must there be heartache and disappointment?
Why do the wicked prosper, while the righteous
take such a beating?
How are we to respond to suffering?
What do we do, and how do we respond when
suffering strikes our family?
Is there any way we can "Learn" what to do about
suffering?
How can we help those who are suffering?
Is there purpose in pain?
Is there any escape?
Where is God in all of this suffering?
Will there ever be a way out of this confusion?
Where and when can we see the fulfillment of
our heart's desire?
Are we doomed to just suffer, and live as
"Sufferers?"
These are questions that countless individuals
have wrestled with... and tried to figure out.
We ask in desperation, “Why do I suffer?"
"Why doesn’t God deliver me?”
We all struggle with our inner thoughts and emotions.
No one on this earth is immune from all of the
different kinds of pain and suffering that can come
our way in this life. At times, a certain amount of
pain and suffering is what God will use to help shape,
mold, and transform us.
Taking up our cross daily leads to transformation.
As Believers, it is inevitable that at some point we
will encounter trials.
Troubles, trials, and tragedies have touched us all,
and no one is immune from the pressures of life or
suffering.
Our suffering in life can be a potent jolt in making us
more discerning and progressive. Suffering can be part of
the ways of God's working with us for our own
development and to bring us to a knowledge of Himself.
This happened during Jesus' life on earth. He was
heard because of His reverent submission.
That is what it takes to faithfully take up your cross
daily! We have to cry out to God for the strength to
hold out – for the strength to say “No” and keep
saying “No” in the time of temptation. We must
humble ourselves and have the same mind that
Jesus had:
“Not My will, but Yours, be done.”
God uses even the most painful
suffering for good.
One might ask...
How can a just God allow such things to happen?
How is it that God, who loves us so much,
allow suffering to come into our homes?
As it goes... sadness is a part of our journey.
Sometimes we feel completely alone when we are
suffering. We feel helpless and useless. When we need
God, the most, sometimes we feel that God is not there.
We may feel at times as if God is unfair and harsh, but He
is a God of Love who permits things in our life that are
temporarily very painful so that His eternal purposes may
be worked out.
God in His grace often allows those times of severe
storms and deep distress to teach us important lessons
of His grace. As we call out to God for help and
strength we discover,
God's grace is more than adequate
to meet our needs.
God is our greatest Support, He is our merciful Provider,
our Rock on which we stand and our Comforter. God
knows that His strength is made perfect in our weakness.
He knows that in our helplessness, His grace is more
than sufficient for our needs, for His strength is
perfected in our insufficiency.
Let us always remember and never forget:
The Cross precedes the
Crown.
When we look back on life, often, our trials and
tribulations come most easily to our memory.
Those times when everything moved along
easily tend to fade into relative insignificance.
Our education is never completed. It is necessary for us to
prepare for what life has to teach us by being open to the
lessons in everything we do and experience. Some of the
hard, disappointing, painful, and difficult experiences I
have gone through... have become extremely important
and valuable life lessons and served as platforms to
reinforce character lessons that I would not have
learned any other way.
These meaningful and worthwhile experiences,
although painful, have and are richly educating and
enriching my life. They have proven to be extremely
useful and relatable to anyone who needs to change
their direction while they can.
These lessons, although painful, have been a reminder
of what is important in life, Who we should put our
trust in, and Who we can always depend on.
We believe some of the richest, fullest, and most fruitful
lives are those lives that have been in the Divine crucible
of testing and tribulation. The severe testing leaves one
either broken or purified, and this is indeed reason
enough to rejoice and count it all joy... even as we
weep.
James says, "My brethren, count it all joy when
ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this,
that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that ye
may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
James 1:2-4
James advises us to get happy when we see
trials and challenges. The testing of your faith
brings you to patience and when you allow
patience to take its full course, it’s going to take
you to a place of maturity and perfection.
God’s purpose is for the
glory of God...
and for the works of God to be revealed.
Integrity enables a person
to persevere.
Integrity means that we don't compromise and
thus it enables us not to give up. Integrity is not
something that comes overnight, but is something
that is built up through repeated tests. It is the trials
that God sends that purge us of sin and enable us
to grow and mature in integrity.
When human support or material help of any kind is
removed, that is when God's power can become operative.
We believe the entire universe is God's garden, and God
desires for His garden to grow, mature, and produce.
We believe the Master Gardener, cuts off every branch in
us, whether the branch is a person, place, or thing,
that bears no fruit... or stagnates our growth in Him.
Each of us has, more than likely, had a loved one die,
been the victim of a crime, lived among or been exposed
to the poverty-stricken, or in some way been confronted
with the reality of suffering.
We all have stories of suffering, and these encounters
come in many different forms... affecting countless people
in numerous ways.
Think about it:
There are sudden accidents, disabilities, natural disasters,
life-threatening hardships... like a terminal illness, a
marriage could be failing, a child could have broken a
parent's heart or vice versa, one could have just lost their
job and now find themselves in a financial disaster...
barely making it, one could be frightened, lonely,
misunderstood, or depressed.
God allows us to suffer for
various reasons.
Sometimes it takes difficulties, hardships, pain, loss,
tragedies, accidents, family or health issues
to get our attention.
Sometimes God allows these things to enter a life in order
for one to detach from all else...
and look to Him.
Sometimes God puts us on our backs...
so there's nowhere else to look,
except up.
Tragedies, sorrows, and sufferings can be
blessings in disguise.
As painful as many of the hard knocks have been...
many of the painful situations I have gone through
have been great groomers and pruners.
Whether we are innocent victims or we bear partial
responsibility, we still naturally wonder...
Why is life so difficult?
Even when suffering comes to those who are innocent,
there may be the possibility
of greater good within that suffering.
We need a pure heart to see the hand
of God, to feel the hand of God, to
recognize the gift of God in our
suffering.
Innocent suffering is the same
as the suffering of Jesus.
God knows exactly where we are in
life. He knows, sees, cares, and
controls all.
What right have we, as Believers, to expect that we
will be exempt from trials and tribulations?
Jesus endured the cross.
The more fruitful our lives... the
more God will cultivate us.
For the Believer, there is nothing strange
about suffering.
May we endure whatever it is we are facing, and
"Rejoice inasmuch as we participate
in the sufferings of Christ, so that we
may be overjoyed... when His glory is
revealed."
God will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous
blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of
despair. In their righteousness, they will be called great
oaks that God has planted for His own Glory.
Isaiah 61:3
We must face the undeniable fact that Believers do
suffer. According to many verses in the New
Testament,
Believers will suffer in this world...
that's a fact of life.
Suffering can be very painful. To suffer is to be
challenged on many levels. Whether the suffering is
physical, spiritual, emotional, or psychological...
the purpose of our suffering should be seen as...
an opportunity, a transformative
journey into our Spiritual growth.
Suffering is part of the flow of life which can be
personally transformative, if we are wiling to give up
what no longer serves us so as to move into the
unknown. Through our suffering we are humbled and
reminded of our mortality and the reality that none of
us are exempt from the difficulties of human life.
No matter what we may be facing in life,
God promises to use all things for good.
According to Scripture...
testing, trial, suffering, and chastening are God's
way of purifying, cleansing, and conforming us
to the image of His Son, Jesus.
When insulted for the Name of Christ... we can
consider ourselves blessed. Those who live a godly
life in Christ will be persecuted... so don’t think
it’s strange and it’s unique to you alone.
What then does it mean to
“Share in His sufferings”?
To share in Jesus' suffering refers to suffering
persecution, opposition, and hardship.
Jesus didn’t remain in the grave. He triumphed over sin
and death. Jesus humbled Himself by becoming obedient
to death, even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and
gave Him the Name that is above every name, that at the
Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on
earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Philippians 2:8-11
Since God was able to bring about such a glorious
outcome from Jesus’ suffering, we should trust God
to take care of us.
Surviving hardships can teach you important things
about ourselves and the world around us, strengthen
our resolve, deepen our empathy, and in time
enable us to evolve and grow as a human being.
The transformative effect of suffering suggests that
it is our greatest pain that may contain a deeper purpose.
Perhaps that purpose resides in the function of human
compassion.
One could sum it up by saying... regardless of
why we suffer, it is clear that love is the remedy for
suffering, and that all suffering, eventually, after
many detours, leads to love and God's glory being
revealed in that situation.
carolecgood@aol.com
www.carolecgood.com
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Awesome!! We complain about the cross we bear but don't realize it is preparing us for the dip in the road that God can see and we can't. Whatever your cross, whatever your pain, there will always be sunshine, after the rain.... Perhaps you may stumble, perhaps even fall; But God's always ready, to answer your call.... He knows every heartache, sees every tear, a word from His lips, can calm every fear... Your sorrows may linger, throughout the night, But suddenly vanish, dawn's early light... The Savior is waiting, somewhere above, to give you His grace, and send you His love... |
Awesome!! We complain about the cross we bear but don't realize it is preparing us for the dip in the road that God can see and we can't. Whatever your cross, whatever your pain, there will always be sunshine, after the rain.... Perhaps you may stumble, perhaps even fall; But God's always ready, to answer your call.... He knows every heartache, sees every tear, a word from His lips, can calm every fear... Your sorrows may linger, throughout the night, But suddenly vanish, dawn's early light... The Savior is waiting, somewhere above, to give you His grace, and send you His love... |
