By Brother Brian Shimer
Once we reached this core abuse memory, I asked the woman sitting before me, “You have told me, you are not a follower of Jesus, but He can make a difference. Is it alright with you, if I invite him to show up in your memory of the abuse? He will help you walk through it to healing.”
She nodded.
I prayed and Jesus showed up. She gasped seeing Him there. And he led her from darkness to light. She left the office that day free and healed of the abuse, and with a new relationship with Jesus.
For Jesus no pit is too deep for his love. He understands human suffering.
Suffering is fairly ubiquitous in our lives. In Jesus, we are not told to escape it, but rather, wildly, we are told to embrace and celebrate it!
Brother Gary prepared us for this last week. We are to welcome, embrace, celebrate, rejoice in it, because we can know for certain, suffering, like the best soil, bears fruit in our lives.
“There’s more to come: we continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us…”
(Romans 5:3, MSG)
Or as the ESV says, “Suffering produces endurance.”
When looking back in your own life, when did you grow the most? Was it during easy or difficult times? I have yet to meet someone who cites easy times.
Like a gnarled tree on the edge of a cliff strengthened after being buffeted by strong winds and rains, so suffering strengthens us.
The first evidence of embracing suffering is it produces passionate patience or perseverance within us.
While good times may be preferred by most of us, it is through the stretching times of income shortfalls, of unending illness, of persecution for our faith, of abuse recovery, of heartache, we change for the better.
So, what do we do when suffering comes? Well, if following Paul’s directives, we rejoice. Peter and John responded in like manner after being flogged and told not to speak in the name of Jesus. In Acts we read:
The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name”
(Acts 5:41, NIV).
Prayer: Jesus, give me the grace to rejoice and glory in suffering. Amen.
