Day 68: Called to Suffer

Have you ever found yourself falling for someone who could care less about you? Or, having significant feelings that are reciprocated by lukewarm, and vague, responses at best? Have you ever cared so much for someone that it confuses you as to why you feel that way, and it's actually difficult to articulate, even to yourself?

Welcome to my world.

It's been a long time since I've had to deal with feelings like this. Usually, I am on the other side. The person on top in this weird power play. Usually.

I am usually the one with no emotion, too damaged to seriously care about someone else effectively because of whatever has happened to me in the past.

But, now that I've become vulnerable through Christ's work in my life, it seems like I feel so much for these people because I've become susceptible to one specific complex: the rescuer.

When I see people suffer, I desperately want to help them in any way that I can, especially if it's someone I respect and/or care about deeply. When this feeling overtakes me, I seek to encourage and uplift, almost as if I'm seeking to prove the worth of my friendship, and myself, in another person's life.

In some ways, I desire approval from those I am trying to help more than the approval of God, and that's where it gets dangerous.

So, of course, God spoke into my life in a bold way...

This morning I tried something new. I woke up at 4:40 am and went to work out with my roommate, Kelsey. We ran, stretched, talked, and then I went to my morning bible study at 6, not really knowing what I would be learning about. A lot was on my mind from the night before, if only my thoughts on how disappointed I was in myself.

We picked up the story where we left off, in Mark 1:14. The message centered around suffering and Jesus' subsequent temptation after His baptism.

We discussed how it was God, and not Satan, who sent Jesus into the wilderness. It was God who presented suffering.

So often, when we think of God, we think that suffering cannot possibly come from Him. We always seem to associate suffering from the sin that resonates within our own lives. And, while that is true, it is true that God can set suffering before us...but He never does it in vain.

Jesus suffered for our sins, for an ultimate purpose. And, God makes that clear in Mark's gospel when He sends Jesus into the wilderness, a place commonly associated with sin. Like the baptism, God puts Jesus through this situation of temptation by the devil in order to approve Him as His son. He is showing us that Jesus was not only baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, but that He lived in the Spirit when He refused to give into the temptation set before Him. God establishes the free will of Christ and shows the potential to live by the Spirit of God, not yielding to temptation.

God shows us, through Christ, what we can live like. We have free will, and we have the potential to live by God's spirit, instead of giving into the flesh.

Jesus was tested, and approved, as He was filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit had a hold of Jesus' life, and became a part of him. From this point on, after the temptation, Jesus stepped out in ministry, beginning His teaching and everything else that God called Him to. The key here is that Jesus received God's approval and then became entirely effective.

So often we feel like we are good enough, and okay to be effective if we have the Holy Spirit...if we are saved. We fail to see that we can't be effective until the Holy Spirit has us, and until we are fully dependent on God.

When we suffer, as Christ suffered, we can't always see it as something to be rescued from. God is the great comforter, and a rescuer of His people, but He also seeks people who are willing to take up their crosses and follow Him...people who are willing to live as sacrifices.

It meant so much to me to realize that God showed all of this to us through Jesus. He showed us Jesus' humanity in His temptation, and the potential that we have to be like Jesus. We have the choice; we need the desire. I was overwhelmed by how able Jesus is, and how He knows exactly what we're going through.

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

Hebrews 4: 15-16

In our lives, sin seems to manifest in three ways: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life. Satan uses these three categories over and over again because they continue to work, and we continue to choose everything but the Holy Spirit.

In my own life, it is pride that keeps me from being tested and approved by the Father. I seek to rescue those who I see suffering because I don't want them to have to go through what is difficult in life. However, what I learned this morning is that sometimes God requires suffering in order to have us grow and develop into people who are fully dependent on Him.

Suffering leads to growth and obedience. How can we grow and learn to obey without struggling? We can't seek to be pampered, or pamper others to the point of erasing all suffering because then we eliminate what is truly needed to grow.

And so, this is how my story fits into what God has for me. I need to stop seeking to rescue this person who I care so deeply about. What started out as encouragement has turned into a crutch of my own doing. I'm not relying on God, and I'm keeping this person from doing that as well. I want so much to ease burdens, and stop pain, but I can't save anyone.

Only God can, and He requires our full trust and dependence.

I'm going to end this blog with an open letter that I wrote to God this morning, following communion. Please pray that I can move away from seeking to remove someone's pain, and instead seek to come alongside and endure it with them. In that way, I know that my friend will grow and learn obedience to God, and that I can do the same.

We are called to bear each other's burdens, not to remove them.

In Christ,

Lilia

God,

You knew exactly what I needed to hear this morning. I wasn't only trying to encourage my friend, I was trying to rescue him. I saw the pain and my heart responded with what I thought was encouragement, but was actually the want to rescue him and prove my friendship.

Thank you for helping me to see that growth in you requires suffering, and testing, and approval sometimes. Thank you for reminding me that we can't put that desire for approval into someone's heart, but it has to be their choice.

I pray for growth in my friend's life and full dependence of you, even if it has to come through suffering. Let my friend suffer for his own growth, and for your kingdom.

Love you,

Lilia