Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

If the Lord had not been on our side—
    let Israel say—
if the Lord had not been on our side
    when people attacked us,
they would have swallowed us alive
    when their anger flared against us;
the flood would have engulfed us,
    the torrent would have swept over us,
the raging waters
    would have swept us away.
Praise be to the Lord,
    who has not let us be torn by their teeth.
We have escaped like a bird
    from the fowler’s snare;
the snare has been broken,
    and we have escaped.
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

• Psalm 124:1-8

My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,

• Galatians 4:19

“One element in the alternative danger that attends the saints of God is the agony it produces. It is strange that God should make it that ‘through the shadow of an agony cometh Redemption’; strange that God’s Son should be made perfect through suffering; strange that suffering should be one of the golden pathways for God’s children. There are times in personal life when we are brought into an understanding of what Abraham experienced. ‘Get thee out of thy country …’ It is not so much that we are misunderstood, but that suffering is brought on others through our being loyal to God, and it produces agony for which there is no relief on the human side, only on God’s side. When we pray ‘Thy Kingdom come’ we have to share in the pain of the world being born again; it is a desperate pain. God’s servants are, as it were, the birth-throes of the new age. ‘My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you’ (Galatians 4:19). Many of us receive the Holy Ghost, but immediately the throes begin we misunderstand God’s purpose. We have to enter into the travail with Him until the world is born again. The world must be born again just as individuals are.”

• Oswald Chambers, Daily Thoughts for Disciples (August 28, from The Pilgrims’ Song Book, The Highest Good Volume)

The more and more that I have people tell me that God protects His own from suffering, the more I read about Christians suffering.

But Rev. Chambers has a point.  It is strange that God chooses suffering and trials as a means of making us better.  But you can see it when talking to others, some who suffer daily persecution or severe illness.  When I just have a day where I do not feel my best, I focus on God and rely upon Him.  My prayers are more fervent.

With the love that we have for God, or should have for God, you would think that just breathing clean air while sitting in a comfortable chair should fill us with Joy that God has taken care of us.  But sometimes, we take that for granted.  I almost always awaken with pain here or there, sometimes a lot worse than normal.  And every morning, either before I move a muscle or just after moving a muscle, my prayer is, “Oh, Lord, I am going to need you today.”

That suffering is a pathway to becoming more like Jesus, and most of us will never have the pain that He suffered.  Yet, even in those lesser pains, we are sharing with Him, and He works through us to have us glorify our Heavenly Father.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.