Long Suffering

We learn to bear our crosses with long-suffering in our hearts. Our flesh desperately reaches for solutions and a sure escape to our pain, but the safety we find in avoidance leaves us starved for the nourishment we need that can only be satisfied in suffering. What a mystery that the Son of God himself was perfected through what he suffered.

So why are we fixated on escaping the holy task of being perfected by what we suffer? 

The flesh is at war with our spirits - that is why we do not find peace. The temple that is our body can only have one king reigning on the throne, and two kings wage war until they find resolve. 

So if we have called on that heavenly name and welcomed him into our bodily dwelling, surely we have given him permission to take his rightful place as King of our hearts. Have we? 

If so, his Spirit becomes one with our spirit, and our soul thrives in yielding to a righteous ruler. 

But the flesh must be dethroned. 

A house divided cannot stand; the persistent rebuttal of our old flesh must be silenced, for our true desire is for God to have his way in us. The opposing one shall see her end and be given grace in her leave for the way she held us in her gracious arms for all of these years. She has been a great protector, soaking our wounds in salve and pulling a limp arm over it’s shoulders, carrying us. But in her watchful gaze, the protector of who we must become forgets to see who we were destined to be in the Risen One. Self seeks to carry us to the listless world of delight but fails to recognize the wounds we forged while journeying there. She offers salve in a vain attempt to soothe, but within her heart lies no true solution to cure the wounds she created. The blows of turbulent life have confused the eyes of Self and made her turn inward in self-defense. Now she lays barren in desert sands, seeking refuge in the mirror. Again, we give her grace, for her love abounds, but lacking direction from a Father, she turns her love to worldly desires, lusting to gain the strength her earthly father failed to give her. 

So she ventures on with inward strength and the deceptive tools she gained from the world around her. 

Alas, we lay her resilient form in the waters that changed us, fully submerged under the Blood of a new Covenant; a new promise that she who is raised will be of God’s design. 

The spirit of our hearts, abiding in union with the King on the throne, receives the crosses meant for her. She recognizes crosses eclipsed with glory, the vision hidden in our pain, and the sanctifying purpose in what we suffer. Surrendered self rests peacefully in submission, allowing Holy hands to touch the most tender places.