Will Jesus Ever Be Enough?
Seeing beyond the suffering seems impossible when you are in it. The grieving. The hurt. The piles and piles of trying to make sense of it all. My fleshly eyes want to see the big giant in front of me, yet my Spirit wants to push passed that and say “come on, let’s keep trekking along with Jesus.”
I think each time we encounter and walk through sufferings we tend to have millions of questions. Trying to figure out the why and make some kind of sense out of it. And to be honest, that is okay. The Lord knows our pain, our hurts, our deep cries within including tears that shed day after day.
Suffering is hard. I straight up admit that. And my suffering may not be the same suffering you are walking in. It could be experiencing a long NICU experience. It could be a marriage that seems impossible to mend. It could be a teenage child rebelling against you and God. It could be a diagnosis, or that vertigo that won’t leave and you having to take days off again from work. It could be that you’re single and you desire a marriage and children that you see your best friends having…. whatever suffering you are walking in, not one of them is easier than the other.
We want what we don’t have and what we do have we don’t want.
Elisabeth Elliot says it best in her book, Suffering Is Never For Nothing, “Suffering is having what you don’t want or wanting what you don’t have.”
In my walk of suffering, I have two options as I see it.
- I could keep seeing the giant, the storm, the trial, in front of me bigger than my God whom I serve, or
- I could keep gazing my eyes upon my God who IS bigger than this suffering, knowing He is sustaining me in it, all by His grace.
Evidently, we have two options friend, and to be honest, it can be very easy to lose sight of our God when we walk these seasons if we aren’t careful, guarded, and protected in Him.
As positive as I am, rather, as optimistic as I am, I lost sight for a short time. I allowed the suffering I was walking, the diagnosis and what the doctors were saying, stick to my core rather than me releasing it to Jesus right away. My mind would dwell on the diagnosis and the “well, what if…”
It was then, early morning, when I heard the Lord say to me…. Remain in Me. Remain. It was a powerful statement the Lord said. I wrote a whole blog post, the WORD He spoke so loudly to me on that early morning, and shared it here: Remain In Me | A Word From The Lord. It spoke volumes to me and had me see where that small seed of unsureness, also known as sneaky doubt, was then planted.
See, God’s grace is sufficient. His grace is sustainable. His grace overflows and brings us back to Him when we encounter times like these. He saw every tear I shed on that restroom floor, on the hotel bed, walking down the hotel hallway, even in my driver seat of my car… He saw and wiped and collected every tear of mine. He was there then and He is here now. The same that He is for you in your suffering friend.
I know walking in the suffering hurts. I don’t claim to pretend it doesn’t. Don’t ignore it either, acknowledge the hurt and pain friend, He wants to know it all. Pretending that it doesn’t hurt won’t acknowledge our need for the Lord and his strength to endure through our suffering, instead it bury’s down even more, taking us further away from the Lord and His sustaining grace.
When I wanted to give up in my suffering, it was then these words flowed right out of my mouth…. “Lord please take this cup from me…. not my will but yours be done Lord. I want what you want for me and if this is it, so be it.” And immediately this peace flowed through me and I was reminded of how even Jesus asked for His suffering to be taken from him. See friend, if Jesus asked the father to have it removed, why would it be wrong for us to say the same? There is no wrong. But we also must remember that in our suffering, in the fiery trials, we are then stretching out this core muscle that strengthens and grows us in the Lord.
A higher level.
A higher calling.
A deeper intimacy with the Lord.
A deeper understating of Gods glory.
The Lords anointing.
We pray for Gods glory. We pray for His glory to be made known in our life, yet, we don’t see that in order for us to experience and see his glory we must also be willing to walk through suffering.
Friend, the suffering you are walking isn’t wasted, and its not for nothing. It is for something and it is for someone, and he has a name….
So the answer to the question….. will Jesus be enough?? Answer is always a resounding YES! He always is and will be enough in our sufferings!
May we be strengthened in our fiery trials, in our sufferings, and give God all the glory and praise as we make His name known across the nations.
Here are two songs the Lord has had me listen to on repeat as we endure through our suffering (funny story here, the Lord placed these songs on my heart as I was sleeping and caught myself singing them while sleeping so I woke up that morning and played them…): Spirit Lead Me/Spirit Break Out by Influence Music Michael Ketterer feat. Kim Walker Smith, and Honey in the Rock by Brooke Ligertwood and Brandon Lake