Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Don't WASTE your SUFFERING
Suffering......You don't have to look far and you will see it EVERYWHERE. I see it on a weekly basis most clearly at my job because they can't hide. They come to the hospital b/c they need help, some worse than others but none the less, they are ALL in NEED. Last week I cried behind our scanning window for the 30 year old filled with cancer.... He had not a clue what he was about to endure or experience b/c it was his first test.....(I cried b/c the Lord convicted me in what I thought I had a bad day, sometimes we think we have it bad!!! here I was stressing about money b/c of vehicle problems....Really Lisa??? But God why? Its so hard to understand why?) Here this nice young married boy with most of his life to go and he will probably not even make it one year fighting for his life. WE HAVE NOTHING TO COMPLAIN about people!!!! Get over yourself!!!
Another, a father to a 5 day old, who fell asleep and rolled on top of his child, killing her. Today, a patient's mother had a stroke yesterday and is in the ICU and at night her moms house also burned down (I even looked it up in the sentinel and it was true!) The boyfriend and girlfriend in surgery b/c of a motorcycle accident that wasn't his fault, the 26 year old that got pushed of the dock at the lake and broke his neck and is now paralysed, the man so disfigured by burns from a chemical spill that you couldn't even tell what he used to look like, the decaying 20ish year old female found in a park after being there dead for a week with an unknown name.... I can look at the list of patients in the ER any single day at any single hour and see that many of them are visiting for overdoses, depression and panic attacks, suicide, miscarriage, abuse, cancer, eating disorders, diseases, accidents, trauma's, and death. I have seen thousands laying on my table in pain and suffering and it can happen at ANY time and ANY age....The world is FULL of sadness and suffering......
A great friend of mine recently mailed me a CD from a sermon she had heard at church that reminded her of me, and I am so grateful that she listened to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to follow through and send it to me. It has been by far the best sermon on suffering that I have heard and it has blessed me so much that I can't keep it in. So I thought I would bring it here.
Sometimes I leave work and ask God, Why? Why do the things so bad that I see have to happen? Why would a God allow it too? I have only come to one conclusion and that is that God is Sovereign and sometimes we just "don't know." I do know this: That God is good, He WANTS us to spend time with Him and know Him, He wants us to allow HIS will to be done and not our own, and He can see a greater plan that we cannot. I can only speak for myself and say that for me, it was the BEST thing that has ever happened to me. I want to use the WORST time of my life and turn it into good for Him. He taught me who He was through it. He taught me to give up my control. He taught me such INCREDIBLE life lessons that I could NOT have learned ANY other way. He KNEW that what I needed when I clearly did not. I NEEDED Him and I wasn't living that way. Now, was it punishment as some might say? Maybe so, sometimes it is. I also believe that God hates sin and is a JUST God, we live as defiant children trying to run away from our Father, and He will punish His children just like a father and mother have to discipline and punish theirs when we are out of line. But I also know that it happens for something we can only place our faith in God that He does know. Maybe it is to make us more like Him. Christ HIMSELF suffered more than any one of us could ever imagine and He did NOTHING wrong. God allowed it to happen in my life, to be used for HIM and to praise and worship Him, that is why we were created and for 30 YEARS I was missing out on the greatest peace and joy in my life b/c I was living it without Him. I want and long to help others through maybe the same type of situation or understand those that suffer in other areas as well. To bring comfort to them, BY Him and for Him. I figure even if I can help ONE person, if I can reach and put a smile one ONE of my patients, or bless ONE in any way, I am blessed as well. Its got nothing to do about me. It is His will to use suffering and I will follow His will, Not mine.
The Lord has taught me so much over the years, that it is absolutely mind blowing to me to see who I am today compared to 2008 just before my trial that brought about the greatest changes that I could ever experience so far. I learned alot and I could have learned even more if I had known what I know today but isn't that whats great about God's goodness and grace, He loves me and knows, I am a work in progress.
Some of these words are mine, and some of them from the pastor at Calvary Church. "DON"T WASTE YOUR SUFFERING".
From 2009-2011 I suffered silently and quietly. I didn't tell even my closest friends or even family, not even my spouse, what suffering I was going through both physically and emotionally. I put myself in survival mode, hurting secretly, going through each new day with my own strength and my own will, which at times, I hardly had anything left to give to my family. I didn't want them to see me suffer. I didn't want them to think that I couldn't do it. I thought I could do it. Knowing now what I know, I was completely wrong. I missed out on some of God's greatest blessings because I didn't allow others know or help. When Jesus left this earth He left his Holy Spirit in the church, to help comfort those in need. Others WANT to help. Others HAVE been there. You see Satan is the great deceiver and told me: Lisa, no one cares, no one understands, no one has time for you, you can do it on your own, you don't need other people.....And I listened to him. The truth is that others HAVE been there, others HAVE been in the valley and some of them have made it through to the other side and it gives them no greater joy than to help those currently in the valley. We ALL have trials and suffering and just b/c your a Christian doesn't mean it won't come. EXPECT it to come. It will come!!! In different ways, we ALL have seasons of suffering whether thru divorce, affairs, broken homes, difficult spouses, the wayward and difficult child, abuse, bankruptcy, job loss, losing their homes, losing a child, spouse.....The church should be the place we CAN and want to go to for help b/c we are ALL broken in our own way. We can be there for each other. Please Don't suffer alone!!!!
God doesn't always answer us right away or answer the way that we long for either. If God had healed me right away, and I have NO DOUBT that God can and promises to answer for if we ask, we will receive....But that doesn't mean in OUR time. I would have missed out on learning soooo much more about God's character. I wouldn't have learned what perseverance means....there were days that I swore I would never make it. There were many days that I almost died and thought "Yup, this is the end." I am done. I needed to learn: patient Endurance. God gave me the strength to keep going and get back up again. He said to me "Lisa....you must wait, I have so much more planned for you in this." Wait? But I want to be better now Lord!!! "Lisa, I want you to KNOW me..... To know the depth of my love for YOU, the power I give you when you are weak, to trust in me just knowing that I am there with you, that I will never leave nor forsake you, to know the joy of resting in me alone when darkness and silence are all that you can see. To experience My fullness of love and peace, comfort that I give you late into the night, the depth that's beyond getting just what you ask from an infinite God who is making what you have and who you are, last. He said "Lisa, yes your dreams and prayers could be answered by me instantly but Oh, the Loss, if you missed what I am DOING in YOU!!! God was helping me learn to have the faith in Him to make it through ANYTHING else that may come my way. He was building me to last....
Isaiah 40:31 Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
2 Corinthians 1
I peter 2:21 "For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps."
John 16:33, “You will have suffering in this world.”
Romans 8:18: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope ..." Romans 5:3-4
John Piper emphasizes that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” But when serious trials hit, we are susceptible to Satan’s temptation to doubt God’s love and goodness towards us. We ask why God, why me? We are so focused on the trial and the suffering that we are feeling that we feel like God has left us, alone.
When we are driving through the storm and our window wipers are flying back and forth trying to see God, to see His purpose in it all, and what He wants from US through it, we easily forget how great He is. If only we would stop and look in the rear view mirror and see ALL the places that He HAS been. That He HAS been with us the entire time and that He promises to NEVER leave nor forsake us. HE is good all the time. The trial is producing PATIENT endurance to keep fighting and going in this life and finish well b/c God knew I wouldn't do it well in the condition I was in before it!!! Don't take your eyes off God!!
"Don't waste your suffering"
1. DON'T SUFFER ALONE
2. DON'T MISS OUT ON BEING COMFORTED BY THOSE THAT HAVE BEEN THERE
3. COMFORT OTHERS IF YOU HAVE MADE IT THROUGH THE VALLEY AND THE OTHER SIDE
4. THERE IS NO POINTLESS SUFFERING
5. DON'T PUSH GOD AND HIS PEOPLE AWAY AND TRY TO DO IT ON YOUR OWN.
6. WHEN IT HAPPENS AGAIN, REMEMBER THE PROMISES AND TRUTH YOU LEARNED FROM GOD TO MAKE IT THROUGH AGAIN. WE ARE NEVER PERFECT, WE ARE ALL WORKS IN PROGRESS AND IT WILL KEEP REDEFINING YOU
Another, a father to a 5 day old, who fell asleep and rolled on top of his child, killing her. Today, a patient's mother had a stroke yesterday and is in the ICU and at night her moms house also burned down (I even looked it up in the sentinel and it was true!) The boyfriend and girlfriend in surgery b/c of a motorcycle accident that wasn't his fault, the 26 year old that got pushed of the dock at the lake and broke his neck and is now paralysed, the man so disfigured by burns from a chemical spill that you couldn't even tell what he used to look like, the decaying 20ish year old female found in a park after being there dead for a week with an unknown name.... I can look at the list of patients in the ER any single day at any single hour and see that many of them are visiting for overdoses, depression and panic attacks, suicide, miscarriage, abuse, cancer, eating disorders, diseases, accidents, trauma's, and death. I have seen thousands laying on my table in pain and suffering and it can happen at ANY time and ANY age....The world is FULL of sadness and suffering......
A great friend of mine recently mailed me a CD from a sermon she had heard at church that reminded her of me, and I am so grateful that she listened to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to follow through and send it to me. It has been by far the best sermon on suffering that I have heard and it has blessed me so much that I can't keep it in. So I thought I would bring it here.
Sometimes I leave work and ask God, Why? Why do the things so bad that I see have to happen? Why would a God allow it too? I have only come to one conclusion and that is that God is Sovereign and sometimes we just "don't know." I do know this: That God is good, He WANTS us to spend time with Him and know Him, He wants us to allow HIS will to be done and not our own, and He can see a greater plan that we cannot. I can only speak for myself and say that for me, it was the BEST thing that has ever happened to me. I want to use the WORST time of my life and turn it into good for Him. He taught me who He was through it. He taught me to give up my control. He taught me such INCREDIBLE life lessons that I could NOT have learned ANY other way. He KNEW that what I needed when I clearly did not. I NEEDED Him and I wasn't living that way. Now, was it punishment as some might say? Maybe so, sometimes it is. I also believe that God hates sin and is a JUST God, we live as defiant children trying to run away from our Father, and He will punish His children just like a father and mother have to discipline and punish theirs when we are out of line. But I also know that it happens for something we can only place our faith in God that He does know. Maybe it is to make us more like Him. Christ HIMSELF suffered more than any one of us could ever imagine and He did NOTHING wrong. God allowed it to happen in my life, to be used for HIM and to praise and worship Him, that is why we were created and for 30 YEARS I was missing out on the greatest peace and joy in my life b/c I was living it without Him. I want and long to help others through maybe the same type of situation or understand those that suffer in other areas as well. To bring comfort to them, BY Him and for Him. I figure even if I can help ONE person, if I can reach and put a smile one ONE of my patients, or bless ONE in any way, I am blessed as well. Its got nothing to do about me. It is His will to use suffering and I will follow His will, Not mine.
The Lord has taught me so much over the years, that it is absolutely mind blowing to me to see who I am today compared to 2008 just before my trial that brought about the greatest changes that I could ever experience so far. I learned alot and I could have learned even more if I had known what I know today but isn't that whats great about God's goodness and grace, He loves me and knows, I am a work in progress.
Some of these words are mine, and some of them from the pastor at Calvary Church. "DON"T WASTE YOUR SUFFERING".
From 2009-2011 I suffered silently and quietly. I didn't tell even my closest friends or even family, not even my spouse, what suffering I was going through both physically and emotionally. I put myself in survival mode, hurting secretly, going through each new day with my own strength and my own will, which at times, I hardly had anything left to give to my family. I didn't want them to see me suffer. I didn't want them to think that I couldn't do it. I thought I could do it. Knowing now what I know, I was completely wrong. I missed out on some of God's greatest blessings because I didn't allow others know or help. When Jesus left this earth He left his Holy Spirit in the church, to help comfort those in need. Others WANT to help. Others HAVE been there. You see Satan is the great deceiver and told me: Lisa, no one cares, no one understands, no one has time for you, you can do it on your own, you don't need other people.....And I listened to him. The truth is that others HAVE been there, others HAVE been in the valley and some of them have made it through to the other side and it gives them no greater joy than to help those currently in the valley. We ALL have trials and suffering and just b/c your a Christian doesn't mean it won't come. EXPECT it to come. It will come!!! In different ways, we ALL have seasons of suffering whether thru divorce, affairs, broken homes, difficult spouses, the wayward and difficult child, abuse, bankruptcy, job loss, losing their homes, losing a child, spouse.....The church should be the place we CAN and want to go to for help b/c we are ALL broken in our own way. We can be there for each other. Please Don't suffer alone!!!!
God doesn't always answer us right away or answer the way that we long for either. If God had healed me right away, and I have NO DOUBT that God can and promises to answer for if we ask, we will receive....But that doesn't mean in OUR time. I would have missed out on learning soooo much more about God's character. I wouldn't have learned what perseverance means....there were days that I swore I would never make it. There were many days that I almost died and thought "Yup, this is the end." I am done. I needed to learn: patient Endurance. God gave me the strength to keep going and get back up again. He said to me "Lisa....you must wait, I have so much more planned for you in this." Wait? But I want to be better now Lord!!! "Lisa, I want you to KNOW me..... To know the depth of my love for YOU, the power I give you when you are weak, to trust in me just knowing that I am there with you, that I will never leave nor forsake you, to know the joy of resting in me alone when darkness and silence are all that you can see. To experience My fullness of love and peace, comfort that I give you late into the night, the depth that's beyond getting just what you ask from an infinite God who is making what you have and who you are, last. He said "Lisa, yes your dreams and prayers could be answered by me instantly but Oh, the Loss, if you missed what I am DOING in YOU!!! God was helping me learn to have the faith in Him to make it through ANYTHING else that may come my way. He was building me to last....
Isaiah 40:31 Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
2 Corinthians 1
I peter 2:21 "For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps."
John 16:33, “You will have suffering in this world.”
Romans 8:18: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope ..." Romans 5:3-4
John Piper emphasizes that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” But when serious trials hit, we are susceptible to Satan’s temptation to doubt God’s love and goodness towards us. We ask why God, why me? We are so focused on the trial and the suffering that we are feeling that we feel like God has left us, alone.
When we are driving through the storm and our window wipers are flying back and forth trying to see God, to see His purpose in it all, and what He wants from US through it, we easily forget how great He is. If only we would stop and look in the rear view mirror and see ALL the places that He HAS been. That He HAS been with us the entire time and that He promises to NEVER leave nor forsake us. HE is good all the time. The trial is producing PATIENT endurance to keep fighting and going in this life and finish well b/c God knew I wouldn't do it well in the condition I was in before it!!! Don't take your eyes off God!!
"Don't waste your suffering"
1. DON'T SUFFER ALONE
2. DON'T MISS OUT ON BEING COMFORTED BY THOSE THAT HAVE BEEN THERE
3. COMFORT OTHERS IF YOU HAVE MADE IT THROUGH THE VALLEY AND THE OTHER SIDE
4. THERE IS NO POINTLESS SUFFERING
5. DON'T PUSH GOD AND HIS PEOPLE AWAY AND TRY TO DO IT ON YOUR OWN.
6. WHEN IT HAPPENS AGAIN, REMEMBER THE PROMISES AND TRUTH YOU LEARNED FROM GOD TO MAKE IT THROUGH AGAIN. WE ARE NEVER PERFECT, WE ARE ALL WORKS IN PROGRESS AND IT WILL KEEP REDEFINING YOU
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