Suffering Part 3

Here is one of the responses to yesterday's posting. This impacted me so much, I wanted to share it with you.

When we're suffering, we typically get on our knees and beg God to make it stop. In Acts 4, when the apostles were publically flogged for preaching the gospel, they went to church, got on their knees together, and prayed that God would make them even bolder and more courageous in their preaching. That blatant difference scares me for a variety of reasons.

But what if we tried something different? What if instead of praying for our sick to be healed, we prayed that God would help them be radiant exemplars of Christian hope and victory over death and dying? What if praying for the safety of our military, we prayed God would raise up missionaries to go into the most dangerous parts of the earth? What if instead of praying for God to end a particular struggle or suffering or persecution, we asked Him to help us to relate more to Christ and His sufferings (and maybe even asked Him not to turn down the heat until we do)? What if instead of asking God to make things easier for us to move around in the world, we asked Him to give us such courage that no obstacle, no matter how daunting, would stop us from going where He sends?

These are all such anti-cultural/anti-church (as in the modern church) ideas. This is so against everything that my flesh screams. And I think it is at the heart of what God wants for his people. God help us as we begin to suffer in a way that glorifies you.