Suffering….No thank you God I think I would rather not suffer today – so if at all possible would you make any suffering that is coming my way just go away. I have, you see, been managing rather well to serve you just recently and it would be a pity to have my routine rocked a bit. I am proud, I freely admit, but only to a small degree, and selfishness well….you cannot see it for all the good I do, at least no one outside can see. And I am trying to work on it as plain as can be. I am at present rather good at self sacrifice and loving too, and don’t need anything more to make it harder to achieve right at this moment. I have had about all you could ask anyone to take this year and I don’t know really if I could cope with more, or at least so I fear. So if you were planning to test me further...to tell the truth I’d rather stagnate and stay the same as I was last year….for it is more comfortable you see for me to just be…well….me.
Without really daring to consciously think these thoughts aloud, we really do reflect them in our lives, or at least I do when I am in comfortable mode. And then some trial or suffering hits you slam in the face….you cry out to God in pain, in agony you writhe around looking for His hand, the very hand you thought you were holding all along, desperate to find it, you realise you had been going alone for far too long and you yearn to find a closeness to God again. For it is then that the moulding takes place, the measuring and finding the true place of grace. The seeing what you did not see before. The realisation of little sins and their consequences shock and the way you forgot or refused to forgive. And you realise again the suffering that your Christ went through for you and the millions of time He forgave without you even knowing you had sinned. The loving and humbly finding a joy beyond any joy you thought possible. I have not reached the point where I would dare to say…Lord let me suffer, but I can really say, thank you Lord for the suffering I have been through.
Consider it pure joy my brethren when you face trials of many kinds….James 1:2 (NIV)
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