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Suffering

Suffering. I hate it. Who doesn't? I'd like to hate it through and through, but I can't because it does come with benefits. Knowing that makes it easier to accept it in my own life and in the lives of those I love.

I'm currently reading, Andrew Murray's The Master's Indwelling. It's not one of my favorites, but he has a number of potent passages. In the chapter I read this morning, on being crucified with Christ, he says:
"What are the marks of a crucified man?...humility...impotence, helplessness. When a man hangs on the cross, he is utterly helpless, he can do nothing. As long as we Christians are strong and can work or struggle, we do not enter the blessed life of Christ, but when a man says, 'I am a crucified man, I am utterly helpless, every breath of life and strength must come from...Jesus, then we learn what it is to sink into our own impotence and say, 'I am nothing....When a man goes down to the grave...it means this: that he cries out, 'I have nothing but God...if you want to live the life of heaven, there must be death."

I've been there before - in that place of utter helplessness where my spirit lay in the dust, unable to move, unable to pull itself up, feeling dead, lifeless, and hopeless (more than once to be honest). My guess is that you have too, and if you haven't, you will. I'm a different person than I had been before those seasons of my life. My faith is stronger. Deeper. More sure. Looking back, I can honestly say I'm grateful - not for the pain and suffering itself, but for the faith, the trust, the assurance that it worked in me. Don't get me wrong, I can't say I'm clambering down the diving board to hurl headlong into a sea of troubles, but because I want to "live the life of heaven, (I know) there must be death," and while I don't think I'll ever enjoy suffering, I want to embrace it the way my Savior did "for the joy set before (me)." 

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