"That I may KNOW Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings" Philippians 3:10
Simply speaking, our assignments from God are all that He allows into our life. I think of this new day and all He has called me to. My assignments are from Him. He portions them all and His promise to me is that He will fill me up, supply me with the strength that I need. I need to receive from His Word what He has for me today.
Thank you Father, "My heart is overflowing.....I recite my composition concerning the King... my tongue is the pen of a ready writer" Psalm 45:1
How God reminded me this morning of His faithfulness in each season of life as I walk forward this new year and take Gods next steps. I am reminded of this winter season, a new season of another new year. A new season for our family as we walk by faith. This new year brought a new and exciting season for my brother as he became a new Grandfather for the first time. A sweet baby boy named Ezra came into the world. We rejoice in God's gift in giving new life! I am reminded of God's ways...new life with the loss of life.... through all things there is always the promise of new life being birthed.
This season, winter is here and it always reminds me of a great stillness and rest upon the earth while God is still working. The dull monochromatic winter scheme, appearing so barren and lifeless, while being prepared by God to bring forth more fruit in His timing. The seasons tell us much of life. His beauty of new life will soon spring forth out of all that appears lifeless and still. The earth with its trees standing tall and bare, waiting without worry, will soon bear much fruit. And may we learn from them. In stillness, God is always doing His perfect work.
With this new year we will travel with God along roads not yet traveled. More trials, more victories...many more prayers, and more assignments from Him.
I thank Him for His grace as He strengthens my heart each day. As I walk forward I understand that grief has its season too. It is a constant companion that is not invited. It desires to stay and take up residency. While it too has its perfect work in my heart I must remember its place. I must allow God to use it and not allow the enemy to control me through it. Although grieving brings the past and future crashing together like the crashing of the ocean waves...my feet stand firm on Christ...He promises the waters will not overflow us. He gives His perspective and reminds me that the memories of the past that come crashing in are as important and the hope that our future will bring as they roll back out.
In seasons of affliction we enter a place where we would choose not to dwell. A place where we must let the Lord minister to our hearts while we wait on Him. In quietness and confidence will be our strength, Isaiah 30 tells us. How we must learn to be still in doing our part and wait on God to do His. We do not welcome our tears but we learn that they are Gods gift to give strength and refresh our spirit as we heal and move forward.
I Peter tells us that suffering too is a part of life for us all. Suffering has been described simply as "anything in your life that you wish was not, or anything not in your life that you wish you had" . And of course there are many degrees to this. God gives us in proportion as to what He knows we can handle. A child may think he or she is suffering, not getting candy. A single woman may feel suffering as she waits for a husband. A man may feel suffering if he is passed up for a promotion. There is suffering in the heart of parents whose child is a prodigal. Suffering in physical pain. Through an unwanted illness. Then there is the great suffering in experiencing the loss of a loved one.
In all our afflictions He is afflicted. We are together with Him. His hands were wounded and scared for you and for me. He experienced every weight of pain we carry. Every injustice, every heartache....He carried it all upon His shoulders and it all was nailed on the cross at Calvary. He was there at the cross, remember? Jesus......"a man of sorrows, acquainted with the bitterest of grief" Isaiah 53 As we believe, He gives us new life in exchange for all the brokenness this world brings. He transforms and He makes all things new...His death then brought life out of the grave. Jesus was there, and His power was displayed in His resurrection, remember?
n our afflictions, as we accept our assignment we learn to 'die to self", and this is simply surrender. It is putting our suffering in the hands of God. Simply said - but we have resisting wills that often think that our ways are best. Its a choice each day to bow our hearts and will. Its doing the Fathers will. Does this sound familiar? Its exchanging our will for His as Jesus did when He came to earth, when He prayed and cried tears of blood in the Garden, when He rose up and went to the cross. Jesus died that we might live. That we may bear witness with our brothers and sisters here and around the world of Him whose suffered for us. If it were 'not for our times of suffering' we would never know so deeply the power of Christ and to know His power we must also know the fellowship of His sufferings.
He bowed His head and took the cup the Father gave him, a cup more bitter than ours. More bitter than all our grief, our trials our sorrows and our suffering - no matter what we are experiencing this day.
"Our cup" that "He assigns to us" is from His loving hands and filled exactly as He portions. Our cups are filled with our 'lot in life'. Some of us have cracked cups, chipped cups, big cups, small cups, flowery cups or plain cups...He designs them each. Our cup is not to be refused or thrown to the side. We have the free will to refuse this cup, and maybe this is you today? Maybe you are comparing your cup, refusing your cup, wanting someone else's cup....maybe you are striving hard to change your cup that you have been given as though it was a mistake. Maybe there is something in your cup that you are refusing to embrace. As hard as it can be to press our cup against our lips, it is so much harder when we refuse to accept His will - this is where we loose our peace - where our joy is robbed. The cup that He gives us He wants us to accept, receive, hold and drink from....it is so personal and specific for each of us and it holds in it the VERY thing He knows we need to transform our lives. Our cup He transforms for His glory. As we drink of it...we are changed.
Philippians 3:10 Paul wrote of this spiritual resurrection that conforms our life. In our afflictions, as we receive them from a Father who loves us and we offer them back to Him, He transforms them. "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death" There is no better way to know Christ than through our suffering.
What does this tell us? We will have suffering. But through it all we will know Christ more.
We will know His power. God will use it all for good. A seed broken in the ground brings forth new life and this is the result. The corn of wheat that falls to the ground speaks of this great mystery of our sufferings....it always produces fruit.
"The acorn was put into the ground, and in that grave he sprouted and sent up its shoots. Was it only one day that it stood in that grave? No, everyday for a hundred years it has stood there, and in that place of death...it now has found life" {Persian Poet}
"Sufferings arising from anxiety, in which the soul adds to the cross imposed by the hand of God an agitated resistance and a sort of unwillingness to suffer - such troubles arise only because we live to
ourselves. A cross wholly inflicted by God, and fully accepted without any uneasy hesitation, is full of peace as well as of pain. On the contrary, a cross not fully and simply accepted, but resisted, by the love of self, even slightly, is a double cross; it is even more a cross, owing to this useless resistance."
Francois de la Mothe Fenelon
"True joy is not the absence of suffering --- but it's the presence of God".
Michelle A. Guerra
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