A Hard Look at a Hard Life.

There are a multitude of themes in Scripture: some major, some minor.  It’s one of the sad realities of modern theology {some of which is dissolving, thankfully, in our post-modern era}, that so many of the ‘professionals’ choose to major in the minors.  There are two themes which if we’re honest we can recognize as constants in the course of our lives— those of loss and Life, the place of suffering and of breakthrough.  On one side of this fence are the concepts of crucifixion, suffering, darkness and loss.  These have become the ‘in’ themes for many in Christendom today.  On the other side of the fence is Life, Love, Liberty and Triumph.  In a word, Resurrection …and the profound power which flows from it.  These, for the most part, have been relegated to an other-worldly status, it’s a ‘we’ll have to wait til we get there to experience it’ mindset.

But is that honestly what Christ intended when He bought us with His blood?  For His ransomed and redeemed, the Offspring of the Almighty, to flounder in failure… forever?  I don’t believe for a moment that’s what Abba intended.  Just as sin fulfills the purpose of pointing us to the Savior, the purpose of suffering is not the suffering itself, but what comes out of it.  It’s what we find on the other side by way of Freedom and Life, the wholeness and healing that is our birthright in the Son, as the “Abba of mercies” reaches down to restore one more broken part of the heart, one more shattered piece of the soul.  This is the Journey we were made for; this is the Life we were meant to live.

We have two basic paradigms which we’ve operated out of when it comes to suffering in the theological circles in which I was birthed.  This is either divine discipline, cause I’ve screwed up royally, cause I’ve blown it big time; or God is testing me.  And He’s going to keep on testing me, He’s going to hammer the living Hades out of me until I pass this test.  Discipline or testing, one or the other.  The truth is, if we’re willing to be brutally honest about it, the testing might as well be discipline, because it all feels about the same as far as the receiving end is concerned.  It feels about as caring and kind as a two-by-four to the back of the head.  In a way, our response to suffering and heartache reveals a deep and fundamental distrust toward the heart of God.  At the deepest level of our beliefs, at the deepest core of our convictions, we don’t really trust that the Father’s heart toward us is one of infinite goodness and unbearable grace.  In our minds, a God who could allow this, or for Heaven’s sakes cause it {and happily}, simply could not be as good and perfect and righteous as He say’s He is in the Scriptures.

I would submit to you, and humbly I hope, that many of us have been misdiagnosing the hand of God in our lives and thus misinterpreting the work of God in our hearts for far too long.  There is so much more to be revealed in suffering than the surface symptoms we have diagnosed as discipline or testing.  Those are two valid options, but two out of a multitude.  What Abba is primarily up to in the lives of His Children, especially the masses of uninitiated men and women who live and breathe the ‘spirit of this age,’ is initiation.  A Calling up and into a much higher plane than the one we presently inhabit with its small stories and daily dramas.  The Spirit is calling us up constantly into the pages of a much Larger Story, into the heat of a glorious Battle, into the path of an Epic Adventure.  And for that He must have fellow-travelers who can walk with Him, who can fight beside Him, who can love as He loves and forgive as He forgives.  In other words, intimate allies of the Almighty.

Jesus wants men who are Warrior-Kings, valiant and courageous, and women who are Queens of Light, ladies of love and mercy.  Thus, the Path He sets us on often looks like this: instruction, initiation, and intimacy.  The instruction is easy; the initiation is hard; and the goal of both is always intimacy with Him.  The intimacy, once established however, is beautiful beyond belief.  It’s here we find, ultimately, the purpose behind the pain we so frequently run from.


Ric Webb

Shepherd
Heart's Journey Community

www.hjcommunity.org