Man just when you think you are at your limit, boom another storm rolls in and tries to take you down like an avalanche. Seriously, I know I always have a lot on my plate and I know that my life seems to chaotic and hectic for some but the reality is that this is my life. I have endured hurts, pains, disappointments, abandonment and rejection most of my life. Nothing new and nothing different for me. But is my body telling me enough is enough or is God just removing all the cancerous people in my life? As much as it stings and as lonely as it is, I need to say God is enough to carry me though.
That being said, As believers God is very clear that we are to bear one anothers burdens, we are to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Some people are wired that they can take a heart wrenching dilemma in their life and bounce right back, Either because they have the tools to do so, they push it aside so they don’t have to deal or they have an incredible support system to help them through. For others it takes a little longer. Its not an instant bounce back, in fact sometimes its a major set back. I have found that in my life, since I have been an individual that takes a little longer to get through the hurts, that people don’t have “time” to deal with it. If it taps into unchartered territories in their lives or it triggers emotions they a have pushed aside they tend to make you feel like the defect, like your the one with all the problems in the world. But God says differently. HE CALLS us to come alongside our fellow brethren. Not just when things are smooth sailing and great, But when our brothers and sisters are in the trenches. When they need to be encountered, embraced and loved the most. But why is it in those times that we feel the loneliest?
God tells us how to love in 1 Corinthians 13 and the church does an excellent job of instructing us in that area and how we need to love others. But what the church is missing is that so many of us are so broken and wounded by love that it is hard to live out the 1 Corinthians 13 love because we have never experienced that typee of love. We have never been loved unconditionally and with an unfailing love. Some of us have never encountered someone that loved us so much that they placed our needs before their own. We live in a world and a society today that people have become so busy with life that they are missing out on truly helping those in need. We are missing out on being Jesus in the flash to the wounded. Listen, the church isn’t a “social” gathering place. It is a hospital for sinners. We are sick in a different sense of the word. Our souls are sick. Our inner most beings need to be restored. Our lives need to be transformed by the love of CHRIST.
So if the church is preaching the 1 Corinthians 13 love and challenging us to love like that, then why don’t we? Why are we Christians not loving one another as Christ loved? Our pastor at church spoke such an incredible message at church this past weekend and spoke on Psalm 37, and how even though David was in the wilderness, He knew God was with him. He knew that through his suffering there was someone in deeper pain and that he needed to meet that person where they were at in their journey, serve them and LOVE them as Christ loved. He knew his time of wilderness was pruning, purifying and strengthening him to be who CHRIST called him to be.
It reminded me of a song a sang in BIBLE study years ago.. Refiners fire, my hearts one desire is to be holy.. As we go through the fire, the purification process, we are refined. We are being molded and chiseled into Christ likeness. However even though we are being purified and refined, we are still called to LOVE and serve those who are also suffering. Those who have less and those who do not know JESUS.
So my point?? My point is as Christians we need to step up to the plate. Stop the business of life and listen to the world around us. There are hurting people that are being crippled by their pains. There are people in situations where they are just about at the end of their rope and their options are to throw the towel in on their lives. People are desperately needing someone to notice that they are in a grave, and every time they try to escape the ditch they get bombarded with an outpouring of rocks falling down upon them. The reality is, these people don’t need to experience the pressure of a boulder, they need to experience an outpouring of love upon them. We need to come alongside those people and show them the LOVE of Christ. Stop preaching the 1 Corinthians love and act on it.
I have been blessed that when I am in the trenches of the wilderness, when I want to just escape from life, God sends just the right person, the right message, the right worship song to radiate through my inner most being and transform me back into the everlasting embrace of my Abba Father. I am reminded that he won’t let me travel to far before reeling me back into HIS arms. I am blessed that no matter what I face, no mater the offense I take on, rejection I feel, that God says, let me lavish you with my love my believed daughter. I am blessed but there are so many others that have never experienced this.. Step out of your comfort zone and love someone differently the week. You could be saving their lives..