Day 3471 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Philippians 1:29 NIV

Making this easily one of the strangest gifts ever given!

Because it somehow begins to inspire us to consider that perhaps to struggle for Him is the only feasible way in which to show the world that what we believe is not merely a matter of some passing hope which dissipates at the first sign of difficulty but is rather a hope of such immensity that it has become the only gravity which holds us here inside not this world but rather within this work that He’s left us here to do on His behalf, the work of making Him known through whatever venture or violence that might necessitate the showing of our suffering in order to shine forth the sternness of our salvation.

For it’s easy to proclaim hope when life is comfortable and concise, but it sends an altogether different message when the world sees us at rock bottom upon our knees thankful for such a rare opportunity to praise amidst the pain of persecution or peculiarity.

That’s simply not something that many here seem at all willing to do. As we’ve been talking for a couple of posts now, rather than being a people willing to work for, wait for, war for what we know is worth the hardship, no, we run away from hardship. We seek to avoid calamity, assuming that any such catastrophe is nothing but a monstrosity which perfects this pretense of personal misery that we feel not at all inclined to endure let alone actually embrace.

And yet that is in fact what our Savior chose to do for us. He chose that cross for as to both pay our cost with a life here lost but also to begin the good work of helping us understand the true brevity of life as lived in sin now compared forever against the eternity of the life given us in the Son. He made that choice, delighting in that very decision to descend from Heaven into this hell we’ve made of a life lived apart from His law, outside of His will, opposed to His way, all because that is the only way to ever possibly open eyes so blinded to belief that we’ve become all but belligerent against it.

Indeed, we so despise belief that we’ve communally agreed to assume it best a matter of sight, entirely and in fact willfully ignoring or perhaps even rebuking the very reality of what all hope must be as spoken forth in Romans 8:24. “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?”

What hope? The hope we haven’t seen, the hope still to come, the hope presently underway proven within patience purchased of hope held not in that in which we’ve come to delight but rather a hope still held despite our lives at times falling inside the dangers and disasters and discontentment and disenfranchisement and disfigurement and disagreement and even perhaps the very disillusionment of our being so needing the dissolving of our very welcome within this world should that again become something this sick and sinful society insists upon.

Like they did unto the One who gave us this hope, gives us this hope. That is the joy of the truth spoken in Romans 8:23. It is that we who’ve been allotted the first fruits of the Holy Spirit as sent forth unto, into all believers as a down payment upon their permanent place in His presence, it’s left us groaning not because of present difficulties but rather because we know that they’re but a temporality which precedes that permanence He’s upon the cross purchased.

Indeed, we “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

But yet we know that since we are here in this body we are thus apart from that to which we’re so filled with hope of returning. Yes indeed, 2 Corinthians 5:4. “For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”

So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

And so that’s the present predicament in which we find ourselves. We are mortal, caught in the momentary of our own mortality. Alas we too find ourselves still scattered amongst a people perfectly opinionated about such things as mortality, morality, modesty, honesty, the necessity of such things as pain, persecution, even patience. This world hates all the above so very much that they seek to inspire everyone else to agree to the same sort of assumptions of all miseries being worth nothing as they find them to be nothing other than some personal affront to our preference for comfort.

Yes, this world has in fact convinced us all that all of life’s hardships are nothing but a confrontation against which we ought to live in spite as if God is so spiteful as to send us struggles only to watch us suffer. Forgetting obviously that He is not as we are, though we were at once as He is. Rather we’ve fallen so very far from that image that we no longer count it of much worth, especially enough to embrace the suffering of struggle as promised in life anyway, let alone that which Christ showed begins the new life He’s given us that hope of having.

That’s the part that I seem to be unable to understand anymore. Why do we, how do we so misconstrue life that we insist it now is supposed to be nothing but ease? Back in middle school we had this gym teacher, funny guy, Coach Wead, who had all these witty little one-liners that he would drop out of nowhere. But one of his little quotes that he said constantly, that has stuck with me for some reason, was that, “life sucks and then you die.” And at the time we all just giggled as preteens would at someone saying “sucks”, but we missed therein the reality of it. Because life is hard. Life is complicated. Life does indeed bring more rainy days it seems than those sunny and warm that so many here prefer.

It almost makes you sort of stop and wonder why we do indeed go through such difficulty so regularly.

Kind of wonder if perhaps God’s got other ideas than ours so always focused upon fun and frivolity. Maybe He’s got a point to prove that is only found within the fire. Maybe the grave has to be the place where faith starts. Maybe one can’t truly pray without humility. Maybe none can be humble until their better preferences are proven impossible.

Perhaps through struggle.

But again, we’ve fallen along with the world into this rampant irreverence that’s caused us to become almost caustic to the mere consideration of anything other than comfort. We loathe the very mention of even the idea of a mistake being made or a misunderstanding being had. In fact it seems as if we think ourselves owed something, but always insisting that that ‘something’ be either what we want or nothing at all. And such a sick sense of entitlement has become to us an inability to realize that suffering is potentially a reward.

Yet how could misery be something akin to a miracle?

Well, allow us to again refer back to the cross. You see, such a selflessness ought to always remain the turning point to which we return whenever we feel as if life is sliding a little sideways, leading us or leaving us a little off course. We should always think back to what Christ has done in order for us to have even the ability to imagine such mercies as forgiveness let alone a forever found in that place that we simply, as sinners, have no business ever hoping to be.

Because the truth is that God is as meticulous a Creator as is possible. He literally authored all of life, all of creation, all that we have seen and all the more that we haven’t yet. And He did so in such authority that all of creation is still spinning just as He planned it, aside from our vile love of wickedness. And so we have to understand that everything He does has indeed worked out perfectly in accord with His perfect plans. Calvary being no different.

That scene we see as shown inside the Scriptures which recount that accomplishment is one that shows us the very miracle that misery can be. Because He laid down His life in what is still considered an utterly brutal fashion, but not just to die. He did it to live, but not just for Himself, but that any who might believe would be able to join Him in that resurrection that so many here assume too impossible to believe. Because they didn’t see it, because again, here belief is so little as to be beheld by sight.

But no, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Why? Because those who are willing to believe beyond whatever they presently see, suffering included, well those few are the same who have the faith that not only inspects the impossible but expects the impossible.

Even to the very point of embracing every chance to struggle simply because we know that it’s for a reason. And now that doesn’t mean that we’re going to like it as you’d have to kind of be a little off in the head if you know what I mean to literally enjoy such things as physical pain or mental torment as found within the hatred of this world. But maybe that’s the lesson we both have to learn and then get to share in that life isn’t about what we like but rather about us becoming like the One who is the Life.

And again, turning back to the cross, we see that being more like Jesus means a pretty different path through this world than the one we’ve otherwise come to prefer so much that we even pretend we understand it. But what is there to understand about an easy life? What opportunity is there to grow either physically, mentally, spiritually if nothing in life is ever there to push us past our self-imposed limits? How can we ever be better if we’re never inspired beyond the barricades built by believing must begin by seeing?

No, we need this life to be what this life is meant to be as this life is meant to glorify God. And maybe we don’t do that best when life is fairly manageable. Maybe we don’t really praise Him at our full potential when our bodies are fed and our houses full. Maybe we don’t honor Him as well as we could when we can get through the day without really needing Him. Maybe we begin to forget that we need Him when life runs out of lemons.

In fact, we even clichéd that one as if lemons are a bad thing which need an exorbitant amount of sugar to be worthy of consumption.

And all the while, consuming such clichés as seeing is believing and needing to make lemonade out of those sour lemons that pucker your sucker, the reality of what this verse says has been otherwise lost upon all of mankind. For it has been granted to us to not only believe in Christ but to also suffer for Christ. Granted to us. Given to us. Gifted to us. This opportunity to embrace a life of misery is a gift given by God, not because it’s what we had on our wish list but because it’s written within His will for us.

Because He knows rain makes things grow. Struggle inspires one to seek strength. We exercise not because we enjoy the training so filled with sweat and stress and soreness but because we know that it’s building us toward a better us. It’s leaving the old us behind and fighting every day to not let them catch up. Same is said of sin. We are called to turn and repent from who we’ve been, what we’ve become, where we are and to set out in search of the better for which He made us to be.

And all of that losing of a life spent comfortable and cozy inside the shadows of sin deceiving us into destroying us, it’s going to be hard. But that’s the point in that again, whatever challenges you changes you. And looking in that rearview, we need as much change as we can get! And thus we should welcome as much challenge as He decides to send. Not because it’s what we like, but because when we look at the cross, we shouldn’t like being stuck to the dead side of life.

That is why Christ leads us to the cross, to the grave, to the fire, to the storm, to the sea, to the very edge of everything that makes sense or seems reasonable. It’s not to break us apart but rather to break us of this tepid inability to believe beyond what we see or feel for the moment. Indeed, His mercy is meant to inspire us to understand that moments are just moments, and thus it doesn’t really matter with what they’re filled as they’re simply not forever.

Like every struggle we’ll face here. Like every hatred we’ll feel here. Like every loss we’re called to lose here. Like this life that we will all one day lay down because ain’t none of us staying here. No, we’ve somewhere else to be, problem is that it’s either eternally better or inescapably worse. And perhaps His calling us into a share of His suffering helps us not only learn to believe beyond the hardships we see, will see, but also to remind us that this isn’t about us anyway.

Again, we are here to glorify God and speak the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which opens blind eyes and brings the dead back to life. But how can we do something so different if we live or walk or talk in such a way that makes worldly misery seem undeserved? How can we testify to the hope of Christ if we whine whenever His will doesn’t go our way? How can we shine for Him if we feel sorry for ourselves along this path on which we claim we’re following Him?

No, it has been granted us that we share in all that He is so that this world can see for themselves all that He is so that they can see, through us, that seeing isn’t all that there is. Because this world will always be filled with those who see life’s struggles coming and run back into hiding. We have the chance to show them the kind of faith that stands up and smiles at the storms that come rolling in.

And then we get to tell them that He can help them find that same courage to contend for the Gospel rather than against the God who grants us such an undeserved share in what He accomplished through it.

And thus the strangest gift ever given has become the greatest gift that we get to now share with others.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold