Let's continue to look at the reasons that God allows us to
suffer. I'm actually surprised by some of these, as I wasn't aware of
them. Oh, I knew the stories and all, but I had never related it to
suffering the way the Lord has been showing me lately.
He just showed me yet another reason is to help prepare us for a new ministry. This is really amazing to me because this is exactly what He did for me back when I got hurt at work originally! I just never thought of it in this way!
I'm going to post the entire passage of what I've been looking at, since the entire thing relates to what we're studying. This passage deals with the way Jesus suffered for us, and also shows how we are to suffer and why. So we can also look at how Jesus approached suffering and how He handled it when He was here.
John 12:23-29 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus obviously knew what was going to happen to Him. I don't think any normal human being could have lived with that knowledge day in and day out. I think the stress of it would either kill him or cause him to go insane. But here, Jesus uses His own coming suffering to teach us to look on it with a different perspective. He shows us the spiritual perspective, whereas before we could only see the physical one.
The physical perspective is one that we're all familiar with. In Jesus case it was His torture and crucifixion. For us it might be pain, illness, injury, a death, or any number of things that can cause us to suffer.
In the passage above, when Jesus says:
I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. He is telling us that what is happening is that we are actually dying. He shows us that this must happen in order for us to truly follow Him.
I think that this would be much easier for me to explain if I just tell you what happened to me.
As anyone who lives with pain knows, we don't just suffer physically from the pain, but also emotionally and mentally. We feel useless and like we no longer have a purpose in life. At the time I was first experiencing this, all but one of my 5 children had grown up and moved out to be on their own. My 5th child wasn't very far behind them. I knew I only had a few more years before she too would be gone. This just added to my pain because now I was also dealing with the empty nest syndrome on top of everything else.
I poured my heart out to the Lord and told Him all of what I was feeling. I told Him that I felt like I was going through all the stages of grief that people go through when someone dies, except no one had died. What He pointed out to me next just totally blew me away. He said it was normal for me to be experiencing the grief from the death of a loved one, because someone had died. I had! Let me tell you, that got my attention!!
It got my attention because I realized how true it was! My old self had died. I could no longer define myself by what I did, as I was no longer working. I soon wouldn't be a "mother" any more either as my children would no longer need me to care for them. I couldn't define myself by any of the active roles in church because I was unable to do those any longer either. So I was no longer Cindy, the Sunday School Teacher, or Cindy, Michelle and Jenn's mom, or Cindy from Friendship Manor. I was just "Cindy" and I didn't know who that was anymore. All those other aspects of me had died. It was a really scary time for me.
Little by little however, the Lord taught me who I truly was. Who I was in Christ. As He taught me that, I realized that all those other aspects of my life that I had always defined myself by, had really gotten in my way of seeing who I really was. The Lord had to bring me to a place where all these things literally were done away with, before I could see what was really important and that was Him, and my new life in Him.
Now I began to learn what happens when we truly die to self and live for Him. I began to learn to put Him first and to always ask Him what we were doing that day instead of just deciding myself. It became His life rather then my life. It wasn't an easy transition, but the Lord is a very good and very patient teacher. He never gives us more then we can handle at any one time. So this transition didn't happen overnight, even after the revelation of what was happening. I still needed that time to grieve for the death of my old life too.
Nor do I mean to imply that I now have this new life down pat. I don't. The Lord is still teaching me, and I know He will continue to teach me this the rest of my life. Each day is new and has new challenges, as well as old ones. (I think He throws those in just to make sure we don't forget the lessons we've already learned lol)
But back to the "new ministry" part. After I began to learn who I was in Him and that this new life was His life, not mine, He gave me a new job. My own ministry. One I could have never dreamed up on my own. He called it Fresh-Hope and that's how this message board was born.
One ministry that God gives everyone who has suffered is the ministry of comforting others who have suffered something similar. 2 Corinthians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4. who comforts us in all our tribulation,that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
That's part of what Fresh Hope is all about. It's about each of us who have gone through something, giving comfort and encouragement to others who are now going through the same thing we did. Therefore, Fresh Hope isn't just "my" ministry. In fact it's really not "mine" at all. It's God's. It's God who has drawn you each here to share in His ministry, that all of us might receive the comfort, encouragement, hope and advice that we need, when we need it.
So God allows suffering sometimes to ready us for a new ministry. It might be a ministry here at Fresh Hope, or it could be elsewhere, or even both. It could be that your suffering had to happen to clear away some of the "baggage" you had so that you could better take on the new ministry He has for you. Suffering definitely causes us to dig deep into ourselves and ask some hard questions. That's how God is able to burn away alot of the dross we've picked up during our lives and get us back on track to where we're supposed to be.
I hope this has helped someone, I know it's helped me!
He just showed me yet another reason is to help prepare us for a new ministry. This is really amazing to me because this is exactly what He did for me back when I got hurt at work originally! I just never thought of it in this way!
I'm going to post the entire passage of what I've been looking at, since the entire thing relates to what we're studying. This passage deals with the way Jesus suffered for us, and also shows how we are to suffer and why. So we can also look at how Jesus approached suffering and how He handled it when He was here.
John 12:23-29 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus obviously knew what was going to happen to Him. I don't think any normal human being could have lived with that knowledge day in and day out. I think the stress of it would either kill him or cause him to go insane. But here, Jesus uses His own coming suffering to teach us to look on it with a different perspective. He shows us the spiritual perspective, whereas before we could only see the physical one.
The physical perspective is one that we're all familiar with. In Jesus case it was His torture and crucifixion. For us it might be pain, illness, injury, a death, or any number of things that can cause us to suffer.
In the passage above, when Jesus says:
I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. He is telling us that what is happening is that we are actually dying. He shows us that this must happen in order for us to truly follow Him.
I think that this would be much easier for me to explain if I just tell you what happened to me.
As anyone who lives with pain knows, we don't just suffer physically from the pain, but also emotionally and mentally. We feel useless and like we no longer have a purpose in life. At the time I was first experiencing this, all but one of my 5 children had grown up and moved out to be on their own. My 5th child wasn't very far behind them. I knew I only had a few more years before she too would be gone. This just added to my pain because now I was also dealing with the empty nest syndrome on top of everything else.
I poured my heart out to the Lord and told Him all of what I was feeling. I told Him that I felt like I was going through all the stages of grief that people go through when someone dies, except no one had died. What He pointed out to me next just totally blew me away. He said it was normal for me to be experiencing the grief from the death of a loved one, because someone had died. I had! Let me tell you, that got my attention!!
It got my attention because I realized how true it was! My old self had died. I could no longer define myself by what I did, as I was no longer working. I soon wouldn't be a "mother" any more either as my children would no longer need me to care for them. I couldn't define myself by any of the active roles in church because I was unable to do those any longer either. So I was no longer Cindy, the Sunday School Teacher, or Cindy, Michelle and Jenn's mom, or Cindy from Friendship Manor. I was just "Cindy" and I didn't know who that was anymore. All those other aspects of me had died. It was a really scary time for me.
Little by little however, the Lord taught me who I truly was. Who I was in Christ. As He taught me that, I realized that all those other aspects of my life that I had always defined myself by, had really gotten in my way of seeing who I really was. The Lord had to bring me to a place where all these things literally were done away with, before I could see what was really important and that was Him, and my new life in Him.
Now I began to learn what happens when we truly die to self and live for Him. I began to learn to put Him first and to always ask Him what we were doing that day instead of just deciding myself. It became His life rather then my life. It wasn't an easy transition, but the Lord is a very good and very patient teacher. He never gives us more then we can handle at any one time. So this transition didn't happen overnight, even after the revelation of what was happening. I still needed that time to grieve for the death of my old life too.
Nor do I mean to imply that I now have this new life down pat. I don't. The Lord is still teaching me, and I know He will continue to teach me this the rest of my life. Each day is new and has new challenges, as well as old ones. (I think He throws those in just to make sure we don't forget the lessons we've already learned lol)
But back to the "new ministry" part. After I began to learn who I was in Him and that this new life was His life, not mine, He gave me a new job. My own ministry. One I could have never dreamed up on my own. He called it Fresh-Hope and that's how this message board was born.
One ministry that God gives everyone who has suffered is the ministry of comforting others who have suffered something similar. 2 Corinthians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4. who comforts us in all our tribulation,that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
That's part of what Fresh Hope is all about. It's about each of us who have gone through something, giving comfort and encouragement to others who are now going through the same thing we did. Therefore, Fresh Hope isn't just "my" ministry. In fact it's really not "mine" at all. It's God's. It's God who has drawn you each here to share in His ministry, that all of us might receive the comfort, encouragement, hope and advice that we need, when we need it.
So God allows suffering sometimes to ready us for a new ministry. It might be a ministry here at Fresh Hope, or it could be elsewhere, or even both. It could be that your suffering had to happen to clear away some of the "baggage" you had so that you could better take on the new ministry He has for you. Suffering definitely causes us to dig deep into ourselves and ask some hard questions. That's how God is able to burn away alot of the dross we've picked up during our lives and get us back on track to where we're supposed to be.
I hope this has helped someone, I know it's helped me!
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