Oh Saint Suffer Well
"The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught." Isaiah 50:4
Be the end of the year, which is just a couple more weeks, I will complete my first Bible in a Year plan! While I have read the entire Bible in 90 Days years ago, I haven't ever (that I can remember) read it all the way through and pondered. When I finished the Old Testament I loved it so much I immediately started another Bible in a year plan so I could start again and refresh the Old Testament while I go through the New Testament. At the moment I am reading Isaiah and Romans. I've loved every word of the Old Testament, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, the battles in Kings and Chronicles, the words of the prophets. I have found His Word as treasure, and I often think how sad that so many don't read their Bible. I was one of those sad people! Last year I got hooked in through The Bible Recap. I read the New Testament and was thrilled to have someone (Tara Leigh) talk about it to me. I learned so much! I had no idea. I started the whole Bible plan with her and I have learned and experienced a joy of knowing God in a deeper way that I didn't know I could. I read and am faced with having to own up to my bad ways and admit I am even dumber than I thought.
This evening I sat down to read in Isaiah, I'm nearing the end of the book. My eyes were met with alliterating words encouraging the weary through writing...and I felt God nudging me. I'm reading His Word and being taught His truth, I'm applying it to my life. But the response is deeper still. Why am I taught? Not only to obey, but to speak to the weary world around me of hope! To live well in my daily sufferings to the glory of God. That isn't easy. Am I my LORD's servant? I am, and I must carry out what He has given me and bless the Lord for the burden that makes me bow.
This calling of suffering to sustain others reminds me of a favorite passage of mine in John 21. Jesus is hanging out post resurrection on the beach with some of His closest disciples. In his restoration of Peter from his denial, He charges Peter to feed His lambs, and tend and feed His sheep. (v. 15-17) Then foretold the death he would die to glorify God. (v.19) Do we love Jesus? Help those who are little children, vulnerable, and tell them about Jesus and His Word. Don't stop helping and telling when they are mature, keep giving the truth of His Word. Guard and protect. Love them as Jesus loves them. Sounds so simple until you meet a few sheep...and therein lays the suffering! I'm kidding...Sort of.
This passage in Isaiah is ultimately pointing to Jesus who is often referred to as the "Suffering Servant." A couple of verses down we see that Jesus fulfilled and was obedient to the suffering laid before Him. He did not rebel against it, He did not turn back from it. He willingly gave his back to be mangled with a whip; his beard to be ripped out, and his face to be spit in.
This we can know when we suffer in this life the things laid before us, "The Lord God helps me...and He is near to me." We may not face torture in the form of a back whipping. But some of us suffer with mind torture. Some of us are faced with pain in our bodies that takes the breath out of us. We face the pain of broken relationships, of plans we had for our lives. We face loneliness and the inability to make life work the way WE want it. Our jobs frustrate us, and so much isn't the perfection we want. We experience death of loved ones, and their absence leaves us with a huge hole we cant seem to fill. Oh Saint of God, suffer it well and remember His Word. Don't look for God to take it away, but embrace it unto yourself. Be faithful to the bowing of your will to His. Utter your praise in the middle of discomfort that it is working out in you something even more glorious than we could ever know this side of Heaven. It doesn't make sense here, and it doesn't have to. When we can say yes to God, we give others the courage to say yes to God.
How has Christ's obedience to the cross sustained you? In what ways do you anticipate Him working in your life? Who in the Bible suffered and how? Where is the hope in each of their stories?
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