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You have “unique suffering” that is custom-fitted to your back. Nobody has your story or can carry your burden. You have to deal with the uniqueness of your life daily. The good news is that many fellow strugglers have gone before you and have left their thoughts to help you in your journey. I want to share some of their wisdom with you.
You will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ’s company, without a conflict and a cross.
O, what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus.
Why should I be alarmed at the plough of my Lord that makes deep furrows on my soul? I know he is no idle husbandman; he purposes a crop.
I hope to over-hope and over-believe my troubles.
The purpose of my last question is that we often aggravate our relationships because they are not how we want them. Without a proper view of suffering and eternity, you will not embrace your alien status. You are not of this world. But if you live as though this world is all you have, you will strain your relationships. You will attempt to bend them to your will. You will try to “speed up your family and friends” to be better because all you have is the here and now with them.
Rather than being a gospel-centered, gospel-shaped, and gospel-motivated Christian, merely passing through this world to a better place, you will aggravate your relationships with others, rather than helping them in their unique struggles. But when you appropriate God’s grace to your disappointment with others, His name is lifted, and those people are not manipulated to make me happy.
Let me illustrate – I spoke with a man who is divorced. He was grieving over not being able to see his children. I told him that he needed to retrain his mind by setting a different goal. His new aim is eternity, not earth. He wants to enjoy his children today like all the other dads in his life.
He will not get his wish because of his defunct marriage. Rather than pining away at what he does not have, I appeal to him to reset his goal, which is to make sure those kids make it to heaven. He will not get his best life now, but he could cooperate with the Lord in giving them the greatest gift of all, which is an eternal relationship with Jesus.
When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this.
I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths (of the doctrine of election) in my own soul—when they were as John Bunyan said, “burnt into my heart as with a hot iron,” and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown all of a sudden from a babe into a man—that I had made progress in scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God.
One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher’s sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, how did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord?
The truth flashed across my mind in a moment—I should not have sought him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so?
Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all and that he was the Author of my faith, and so the doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, “I ascribe my change wholly to God.”
No matter what you are going through, it’s vital to remind your soul to anchor itself on this truth: God is at the bottom of it all. That which He has begun, He will see to the glorious end (Philippians 1:6)! He is working in you His functional purposes, to conform you to His most beloved Son.
Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.
In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).