Suffering

A friend shared the book, The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules, and I have absolutely loved every second of it.  I have read it very slowly because there is so much to soak up on each page.  I wanted to share a little excerpt that has been encouraging to me.  I tried posting a PDF of it, because I didn't feel like typing the whole thing out, ahh but no luck.

"God harnesses the sufferings of his children and compels the bad things that happen to us to serve his good purposes for us and for our mission in this world. This doesn't fit with how we normally look at things, but author Eugene Peterson confirms that once again we've gotten things backwards, for this is how God has always worked with his own:

          We live in a time when everyone's goal is to be perpetually healthy and constantly happy...
          If any one of us fails to live up to the standards that are advertised as normative, we are labeled as
          a problem to be solved, and a host of well-intentioned people rush to try out various cures on
          us...The gospel offers a different view of suffering: in suffering we enter the depths; we are at
          the heart of things; we are near to where Christ was on the cross.

        I have to ask myself how I can possibly expect to know Jesus as he would want to be known if my life remains unscathed by trouble and grief.  How can I hope to grasp anything of God's heart for this broken planet never weep because its brokenness touches me and breaks my heart?  How can I reflect his image if I never share in his sufferings?  And how will any of us ever learn to treasure his hesed and grace if we never experience phases where these blessings seem absent? I wish I could learn these lessons vicariously, but I'm afraid that isn't the norm for any of us.  Without knowing suffering and confusion firsthand, we're suck in the superficial and we cannot, much less express, the heart of Christ for others.
        Does Naomi (Ruth's mother-in-law) see all of this?  I don't think so.  In the midst of the struggle (of losing her husband and two sons), she is no different than us.  She only feels the pain of loss and the misery of believing God has turned his back her.   But she will learn things about God in this dark place that she never would have noticed in the light.  And through this painfully honest journey, God is building a history with his daughter that will fortify her confidence in him and maker her wise for the task ahead.  Rick Warren could have been thinking of Naomi when he wrote that, 'your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts.'"

      I love this statement from Carolyn Custis James too.  It is so true, when things are all good and gravy, God's daily gifts often skirt by unnoticed. "Prosperity tends to dull our senses to the presence of God's hesed (grace) in our lives.  But, when trouble strikes and you're sitting in the darkness with a heart that aches for him, the slightest sign of his presence is monumental."  Thanking Him daily for His minute by minute presence and comfort as I go throughout my day!