This past week I spent time at the Passion Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. It was an amazing week filled with challenging speakers and passionate worship sessions all while being surrounded by 55,000 other believers. The following is a collection of my takeaways from the week.
The sessions, speakers, and worship weaved together seamlessly. One would have thought that everything was planned and talked about ahead of time…but it wasn’t. That just goes to show how amazing our Father is. One of the themes of the conference was centered around this idea: Pain and suffering are things to be cherished.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not a big fan of pain. I don’t like it one bit. I remember the pain after dislocating my kneecap or the pain after watching my friend’s mom pass away. And I remember the pain I felt when my sister stood at death’s door, lingering between life and death. So why in the world should I cherish the pain?
I started reading through the Bible chronologically, and as God would have it, I was reading through Job during the conference. If you’ve ever read Job, you know the story. Job was a righteous man who was blameless in God’s sight. However, Job was not perfect. To use John Piper’s analogy, imagine Job’s life like a beaker of water. The water was clear, meaning that Job was a pure man. But, there was some sediment that had settled at the bottom of the beaker. There was still sin in Job’s life that God wanted to refine. Satan came to God and asked to sift him. God allowed this “sifting” to shake up the sediment and bring those sins to light that Job would repent and God would purify him. In essence, it was a gift because without it, Job would still have sediment at the bottom of his beaker.
If we want to stay the same and if we don’t want the sediment to be shaken and revealed, then pain is not something to be cherished. But that’s not what God has called us to. We are called to follow Jesus and become more like Him. Through pain and suffering we will grow and become more like Jesus.
Levi Lusko, one of the speakers at Passion, gave an incredible talk about embracing suffering. You see, Levi’s 5-year old daughter died due to an asthma attack, but the Lord has used his pain and suffering to reach thousands of people. Levi talked about how we are to be the fragrance of Christ…but how do we go about doing that? He said that if you want to make a fragrance, you have to take something precious and crush it. It’s the exact same with us. If we are to be the fragrance of Christ, we must be willing to be crushed. Another example–before Jesus multiplied the bread, he had to break it.
If we want to smell like Christ, we have to allow God to shake the glass. We have to allow God to crush us. And we have to allow God to break us. Only through the shaking, crushing, and breaking will we become more like Jesus.
James 1:2 says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” That’s a bold statement to make, but I am beginning to understand what James is saying. Take joy in the trials, because only through the trials will our faith produce endurance. Then 1 Peter 1:6-7 says, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Peter is saying that the trials refine us like fire refines gold. To truly live, we must learn to accept pain and suffering as a gift that will strengthen our faith and produce endurance.
To whoever is reading this—I want to encourage you. I can’t even begin to imagine what you are walking through right now, but I do know this: God has not forgotten you. It’s okay to grieve and it’s okay to feel. But remember this: God is going to use what you are walking through right now. So, embrace the pain and embrace the suffering. Allow God to shake out the sediment that would have otherwise stayed settled at the bottom. Allow the crushing, that you may be the fragrance of Christ. And allow the breaking, that God would use you to multiply His kingdom.
Cherish the suffering. You will not regret it.
