Week 8- Suffering
During this season of Lent, we recognise that our life following Jesus is not story of comfort or ease but of sacrifice and suffering. There have been or will be times where we all experience what the Psalmist describes, the lying awake feeling alone, feelings of withering away, and daily tasks becoming a struggle. This is a reality of what it means to be human, that each of us long for wholeness and peace instead of suffering.
What we see in the scriptures is that God does not despise these cries of our hearts, that he does hear and moves to restore us. That in Jesus we have a God who feels the rejection of his friends, the suffering with that compassion requires, and the grief that only death can bring. God does not just hear us from afar but feels these sufferings with us. More than that, these sufferings also are a sign that the world is not as it was created to be.
We also see these sufferings are not in vain, a moment to grit your teeth and to get through, but a moment to lean more into the God who deeply cares for us, who is looking to restore us not just in an intellectual way but in our emotions too. Breathe, even if they are shallow breaths, the truth that God has not abandoned us in our moments of pain but that He is Immanuel, God with us.
Prayer
Father, you long for the restoration of all things and you have called us into relationship to be your children. We thank you for looking upon us with kindness, love and mercy in our sufferings, that this draws you in close to us as we cry out. That you are not distant or unacquainted with our sufferings but share in them with us.
Help us not to become children who shield our pain from a place of believing that you are asking us to grit our teeth and get on with our duties. May we recognise these times of suffering are not pieces of evidence that you have abandoned us but opportunities to experience your love afresh. Help us to see your longing for our attention and affection in these times. That you can take our anger, frustration, and tears when we are held in close by your loving arms.
Help us to be a people who seek out the restoration of this world, to feel it’s longing and ache as it cries out that this is not the way it has been created to be. May we be carriers of your healing and love to this suffering world.