Rejoice in Suffering
- Mar 11
- 2 min read
Dear Faith Family,
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have, (Philippians 1:29-30).
Monday, lunch was good. Monday afternoon, not as good. Monday night just not. Apparently, a virus army was busy replicating itself building up it’s forces as it mounted a coopattempt inside of my body. At bedtime Monday night my thermostat had been readjusted, and a fever rolled in just shy of 102.
Let’s face it. The human body is amazing! Think about it. It is constantly on ready looking for the invasion of destructive outside intruders. Once detected, the body sends soldier cells (white blood cells) to the scene of the crime to eat the intruders. When necessary, the body resets its thermostat, raising the temperature, making it more difficult for the intruders to survive.
So, I guess you could say that on Monday night I was healthy. My body was doing what it should have been doing. It was working like a well-oiled machine. Soldier cells deployed? Check. Thermostat reset? Check. Virus destroyed? Check. And last night I woke up in a sweat because the thermostat had been reset and my body was on cool down mode.
Here’s my point. If my body was doing so well, why did I feel so bad for a couple of days? Why did I suffer so? Conflict. We live in a world of it. Not just the physical world, but more importantly, the spiritual world. Have you read Ephesians 6?
Reread Philippians 1:29. We have been granted by God for the sake of Christ to suffer. Conflict is this broken world in which we live. In it we are bombarded with “viruses”.Suffering is evidence that God is at work in our lives combating sin.
Ok. So, let’s think this through. Because evil “viruses” exist, suffering is a good gift from our Father as we witness the work of our God in our ongoing sanctification. Dare we contemplate the alternative, no suffering?
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