When the turbulence comes, it is time to simplify life and stay within the grace of only one day at a time, everything else being largely the projections of imaginations, full of wind and fury, signifying nothing. May you be strengthened from within and sense the relentless affection of embracing love.
~ from my friend, Paul
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.
~ from our friend, Paul, The Least of The Apostles, in 2 Corinthians 1
Oh beloved, it is true…
There is much in our lives that we were never designed to carry. Many of us have wounds from our past that are so catastrophic, we can barely remember what inflicted them. Many of us have things, now, that press in on us in ways that make us feel like we cannot breathe. And each of us have things before us, in our futures, that threaten to crush us.
It really is terrible. And no, this is not the whining and complaining of some malcontent who is not getting everything that he wants.
It is terrible
Crushing
Wounding
Smashing
Debilitating
Traumatizing
and Unbearable
Our problem is not that we have things too big for us to handle.
Our problem is that we think we can handle them.
A memory of a broken relationship.
A great failure in our past.
A project well beyond our ability.
A sickness that will end in death.
A person who simply will not repent of the pain they are causing.
No… Just saying that things don’t bother us, won’t work either. Because, though much of what feels like it will crush us, is just feeling – much of it actually is going to crush us. We were never Designed to handle much of the stresses we face.
And this is very good news.
Can we see it?
G_d never intended for us to go through problems alone. G_d does indeed want us to overcome the problems we face, but He has Designed us to live the way He Lives. He has Designed us to live in communion with Himself.
G_d has been where we are. He has been sorrowful beyond the ability for His soul to even endure. Jesus was well acquainted with grief. He has been famished. He has been utterly exhausted. He has sensed the absence of G_d in His own life. But, He handled it the way that we need to handle it.
Jesus leaned ever harder on the support of His Father’s Spirit. Jesus listened ever more closely to His Father’s Voice. Jesus waited ever more patiently for His Father to move. Jesus trusted in His Father’s power ALONE.
And He saved us all.
So beloved. Are you pressed beyond measure right now? It happens. This fool of a writer is there right now too. However, are you trying to figure out how to make things work? Don’t. Be like Jesus. Be like Paul. Be like me (when i am in my right mind). There are crushing weights to life that are well beyond our capability to bear. There are so many things that take a team that includes His infinite power to overcome and/or to bear.
Tonight is your night. Time to be like Jesus, and lean into His Dad.
Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat denial of the gospel of grace. Our approach to the Christian life is as absurd as the enthusiastic young man who had just received his plumber’s license and was taken to see Niagara Falls. He studied it for a minute and then said, “I think I can fix this.”
~Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
This is me. I’m at the end, an illness I can’t live with. I get angry, and take it out on God, sometimes publicly calling Him out for being a sadist. I don’t know how He can forgive me for that. I do believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and I believe my sins were atoned for, God was propitiated and His righteousness is intact. But I am the worst sort of believer.
Hi. And thank you for sharing. Yes. This life is too much for us to handle. And 2 Timothy 2 shares a good piece of news with us:
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.
He has already forgiven you. He already knows your weakness, and has already accepted you. He is not disappointed in you. In Psalm 103, it says:
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.
May I give you a link to another article on suffering? Perhaps it will be helpful… https://ps1611.org/2017/01/playing-hand-dealt.html/
Grace and peace to you, Rob. One moment at a time. You will get through this. Thanks for reaching out.