Suffering for his sake?

Whenever I need encouragement, I feel like God always reminds me to read the book of Philippians written by Paul. In this book, God speaks to Paul about suffering for the sake of Jesus. Paul then encourages people to push past their own desire for advancement and comfort and look for God's prompting in life.

Reading the first chapter, I began to think about where discontentment in life finds its origin. We have all been there. We look at our lives and think how did we get here? I was supposed to be married by 25, on my way up the career chain, and raising two beautiful children that love and respect me, all the time. We look at our failures, our hopes and dreams that were smashed, and we think, what went wrong? But, I tell you, that those dreams you had were smashed for a reason. In suffering, God teaches us so much good, if we allow him. Our knee jerk reaction is to give up on life when we suffer. We think, this is too hard to handle, there is no good in the world. We are forgetting our purpose.

Paul reminds the Philippians as I have been reminded today, that we are here on earth to live. When we are seeking our own advancement or comfort, we are missing the point. As a Christian, we are supposed to value Jesus and our life with him over comfort, pleasure, and the feeling of being liked. It is such a hard task. Yet, when we do it, it advances the gospel. You see, when people recognize that we are living for a different cause, it is contagious. If we are seeking to find our own purpose and value and life, we miss out on God's.

Today, I feel encouraged, not because I have warm and fuzzy feelings in my heart, but rather because I can see my suffering in life for God's value. Whether it be in relationships I have, or circumstances, I can tell that there is God's prompting to advance his glory here on earth in these things. My favorite thing to do is complain. I love it. And, that tells me that I have lost the value in God's charter of my life. He knows the plan behind the suffering. I have to put up the faith in order to see its value.

If you are struggling today because you look at your life and think what happened or what is happening, I challenge you to ask God to see the bigger picture. Open up Philippians and ask God to speak. It is great to be a Christian because Jesus brings comfort, joy, peace and a myriad of other blessings when we just say, "what is going on here?" Suffering brings an advancement of the gospel. If we try and fight it, we prevent others from knowing God. So if you hear me complain, remind me of this fact.

Now, I do recommend finding someone that you trust to be able to share your frustrations with. In order to get to the place where we can see suffering as good, we need to be able to voice these concerns with someone we trust. Praying for our eyes and hearts to be open to God's work is key. We cannot muster enough strength on our own to handle these sufferings. It is only through prayer, relationship with others, and God's work that it can be done.

Be encouraged today. God is at work in the good, bad, and ugly. He intends to use each situation for his glory. Find a friend to work that out with and pray like you have never prayed before.