This past Sunday I was asked to share my testimony with the church we were visiting with. As I sat, trying to listen to where I felt the Lord leading me to share I couldn’t help but shake that it wasn’t supposed to be about my whole story. I personally didn’t feel comfortable telling the story of me starving myself to conform to what society wants me to be to a group of people who are starving because they cannot afford the food they need. Don’t get me wrong, there is hope, redemption, and so much Jesus in that story, but it wasn’t that part of Him they needed to hear.
It has been a rough week. I’ve spent the majority of it wrestling with God. Questioning if He really is the only thing that can satisfy. As I sat and asked the Holy Spirit to guide me in what these people needed to hear I just felt Him tell me to share what I needed to hear, to preach the truth I needed to hear to myself, but through that He would speak to them.
Being a Christian isn’t always easy. The Lord calls us to things that are freaking hard sometimes. He puts us through situations that refine us and make us stronger. Sometimes I want to cry, scream, book a flight home, and just throw in the towel. Unfortunately/fortunately we haven’t been called to a life of ease in following after Him. There are days where you just want to throw up you hands and scream, “Why God?!”
As the Holy Spirit spoke through me on Sunday, I felt the message the Lord was trying to tell me sink into my soul.
I stand here today in ONLY God’s strength alone. Being a follower of Christ is super difficult some days. We are actually called to suffer for His name. We are called to boast in our suffering and glorify His name through them. As Paul write in Philippians 1:29 that we should not only believe in Him but suffer for Him as well. I sat in that service and was so convicted by my complaints. Paul sat in jail and was beaten for preaching the Gospel, we are called to suffer just as Paul did. We are called to boast in the name of Jesus and through that we are learning to be more like Christ. In the end, what is a little suffering compared to the price Jesus had to pay for all of our sins? He suffered so much higher a price to wipe our sins away, I will never know suffering compared to what He has paid for me.
As I stood in that church I understood. The World Race isn’t easy. Being a Christian isn’t easy. We are not called to sit in our comfort and claim to know what it is to be like Christ. We are called to be stretched, refined, suffer for the name of Jesus. We are called to be like Christ.
Suffering for His name is uncomfortable. It is hard, but as Romans 5:3-5 states: “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” I will suffer to produce endurance, and endure to produce character, and with that character hope will come, and Praise the Lord because that hope does NOT disappoint.
So when time get hard and you are uncomfortable boast in the Lord. Praise Him for the suffering because He is refining you to be more like His character. When you wake up with a rash that has swelled your eye shut and you’ve just learned that its good to suffer for His name what do you do? You get up and start praising God because even though you can’t see so well, Joy come in the morning and hope is never lost as long as you are near Him! He is a good Father and He loves us so dearly.
Praise the Lord for He is a good and faithful father! Let us rejoice in our suffering and glorify His name through it all!
Wandanalu (praise the Lord),
Sydney
