A High Calling.

So I never got back here yesterday. Sorry. I got distracted. I was stimulating the economy amongst other fun things. Anyway, I hope no one was on the edge of their seats waiting for my words. haha they aren't worth it!

So in 2Thessalonians 1, Paul prays that the people be made worthy of their calling, and earlier in the chapter he explains that their call is to suffer. So, I started wondering, 'why, God, would Paul say they need to be made worthy of suffering?' Well the obvious answer is that suffering must be a 'high' calling since we are only to be made worthy of high things. In 2Thessalonians, Paul talks about how Jesus will return for his bride, and think about this: He is not returning for a wretched disheveled bride is he? No, he is returning for a whitewashed and cleansed, holy and without blemish, bride. That makes sense and goes along with God's purpose for His people, that they be sanctified. Sanctified means to be made holy, or to be made like Jesus, to be made worthy of this righteousness which is imputed to us. Now I do not mean to suggest we are made worthy through our own work. Rather, it is GOD that makes us worthy. He prunes and prepares and cleanses, or, in terms we might identify with more, He puts us through the wringer. And in this case, the wringer is suffering. Suffering CLEANSES and purifies us and makes us that bride without blemish. One of my current ridiculous fears is that my face is going to be all zitty on my wedding day. Well, it potentially could be, especially if I am stressed out beforehand, but on the wedding day between Jesus and His people, there will be no zits because He will take care to clean us up. Actually, he is taking that care right now.

So, how does suffering 'cleanse' us? Does it always cleanse us? Well no. Suffering can just wreck our lives, IF we respond to it in a manner other than how Christ desires us to respond to it. See, in suffering, there must be some kernal of light, some tiny shell that when cracked open contains enough light to light the largest darkened room. What is this shell?? Well, I would venture to say that part of it is that we can meet Jesus and understand Jesus in a way that one who does not suffer never can understand and meet Him. Suffering is a HIGH calling because it attunes us to Jesus in a special way, and for those who have not suffering as a calling, they will not be attuned to Him in this way. That is why it's such a HIGH calling, and that's why Paul prays the people will be made worthy of that calling.

I believe that being worthy of the calling of suffering means that you do not WASTE your suffering. You do not let suffering cause you to pity yourself or fall into such a depression that you do not fight it. Depression may very well be a high calling to, but not a complacent depression where you are by no means seeking to know Jesus in it and learn to pull from His strength to overcome it. I surely do not want to waste any of my suffering or sadness. I pray that I won't, and I think that is the first step to NOT wasting it. We must pray that God help us NOT waste it and pray that He open our eyes and mind and heart to the countless treasures that we can encounter through it.

Psalm 37:17 says "for the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous." The wicked hold themselves up when they suffer, so when their arms break, they fall. For those who look to Jesus in their suffering, it does not matter when or if their arms break because they are not holding themselves up. This encourages me. Another encouragement is that this same Psalm says that the Lord loves justice and will not forsake it in His time. Perhaps I do not see justice now, but the Lord will one day set all things right.

So I pray that I don't waste my suffering. I pray you don't either. I also pray for faith to wait upon the Lord's justice. I also pray that He love His justice so desperately that He never forsake it.

Postlude: For those who then question: does this mean we should not pray our suffering end? No, I am not saying that. Jesus prayed in Gethsemane that 'if there was another way,' the father take His suffering from Him. But Jesus also was submitted to His Father and willing to go if there was no other way, and there wasn't. So pray for your suffering to end, if it be His will, but I am confident that you nor I want our suffering to end if the suffering will induce produce something in us that we cannot comprehend right now or something that a nonsuffering state could never produce. Remember, it is a high calling for a reason. So in prayers for myself or others and their suffering, I pray for God's will to break through and the person to have a deep Joy of the Lord and deep relationship with Him in the midst of it, that the kernel of light pierce the thick darkness.