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The first and greatest commandment is to love God with all our hearts, souls and minds. We’ve already seen how suffering changes you and me, enabling us to love God more fully. Yet suffering also plays a part in our obedience to the second greatest commandment: to love our neighbors as ourselves. Through suffering we are enabled to love, give, support, stand by, encourage, and empathize with our neighbors in ways we were never able to before. “He that suffereth most hath most to give.”
–Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity

I don’t know how you have had to suffer…
…physically…
…emotionally…
…mentally…
…even spiritually…
And when we suffer in one way it often leads to suffering in one or more of the other ways.

But realize this, that God will walk with you through your suffering. And even if the suffering never leaves you (as it never did with Paul’s “thorn”), realize that having God with you in the midst of the suffering will be sufficient and enough to count your walk in it as a victory. His grace is sufficient, and we are made strong in Him when we deal with suffering and weakness in ourselves.

And going through your struggle – whether you have emerged from it on the other side or are in the midst of it right now – gives you an ability to speak into the lives of others in a new way. You have new empathy that will help you love, give, support, and encourage others who are in similar circumstances.

Don’t waste your suffering on self-pity. Use your suffering as a tool to minister to others. Jesus was the ultimate “wounded healer.” Follow His example and allow your wounds and your scars to guide you into deeper and fuller love and compassion and ministry to others.

Jesus established the New Covenant between God and us. But what was “new” about it?

What is new about the New Covenant, therefore, is not the idea that God loves the world enough to bleed for it but the claim that here He is actually putting His money where His mouth is. Like a father saying about his sick child, ‘I’d do anything to make you well,’ God finally calls His own bluff and does it. Jesus Christ is what God does, and the cross where He did it is the central symbol of New Covenant faith.
–Frederick Buechner

When you see a cross today, will you just think of it as a nice piece of jewelry or an attractive piece of home decoration? If we are not careful, we will become “desensitized” to the image and the meaning of the cross. When we see a cross, it should remind us of that central symbol of the New Covenant. The cross should remind us of the death of Jesus. The cross should remind us of our sin. The cross should remind of the amazing love of Jesus.

I challenge you to keep your eyes open today for the symbol of the cross and to say a silent prayer of thanks to God for what He did on the cross every time your eyes fall upon one today.

There are only two things that really matter in this life: God and people. They are the only things that last forever.
–Rebecca Pippert

And if this is so, then the two chief concerns of your life should be your relationship to God and to others. What have you been focused on above these two things that really matter?

In his discussion of the Sermon on the Mount, Yancey indicates that Jesus’ words indicate a Great Reversal – meaning that the way God’s kingdom works is almost exactly the opposite of how our human kingdoms work. For example:

…I began to realize why so many saints voluntarily submit to the discipline of poverty. Dependence, humility, simplicity, cooperation, and a sense of abandon are qualities greatly prized in the spiritual life, but extremely elusive for people who live in comfort. There may be other ways to God but, oh, they are hard — as hard as a camel squeezing through the eye of a needle. In the Great Reversal of God’s kingdom, prosperous saints are very rare.
–Philip Yancey

We know God calls us to dependence on Him and interdependence on others. We know that he desires humility and simplicity in our character. And yet these qualities are not often highly praised in our society and culture. Without much material wealth, prideful independence can be harder to obtain, but that is what most of us are seeking here in America.

The question becomes – “What is most important to you?” The character traits that come with the Great Reversal of God’s kingdom, or the characteristics and qualities that our society says are important?

Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist’s pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in accepting it. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home.
–G. K. Chesterton

Chesterton certainly was a man with a gift for words. He does a great job here of reminding us that the reason that we have discomfort and uneasiness in this world is that we weren’t designed for it. We don’t fit in here. Unlike all other created things, we were designed in the Image of God, and therefore we long to be in a place fit for that Image. That is why we often feel homesick even though we are in sitting in our own houses. Therefore, we are aliens in this place, sojourners longing to get home to our true country – the land where there is no need for a sun, because the light of the Son will provide us with all we need and desire.

But a problem is that many people, though they definitely feel that they don’t belong here, haven’t realized that the only place where they will feel “at home” is with God. They continue to fight against that idea, and if they do so until the end of their lives here on earth, refusing to choose to go to God’s country, then they will continue to feel discomfort and unease for all of eternity.

I am longing to go to my home with Jesus. I hope you realize that is the only place you will ever find true and lasting comfort, peace, and rest.