Save This for When Life Sucks

It’s inevitable… Life is going to suck sometimes. I don’t mean your favorite store doesn’t have the stiletto’s you’ve been lusting after in your size. Nor am I talking about when you run out of your moisturizer and you have to use the back-up brand you leave in the bottom of your gym locker. (Yes, that is a snapshot of my life… No, you don’t get to judge.) Anywho! Back to the Suckage of Life.

In some way or another, your life will fall apart right before your eyes and the harder you grasp to hold on, the faster it will crumble between your trembling fingers.

I share this because I have lived it. I have cried the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. I felt the anger that raged in my heart. I experienced a hopelessness that shattered my life. At some point, I embraced the hurt to the depths of my soul and it allowed me to get to the other side. It was there I began to build the foundations of my life on solid rock, piece-by-piece.  The Suckage will come in many forms, an unexpected illness, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, the breaking of a relationship, a heart or a home. Sometimes out of nowhere, other times we see it coming a mile away, but are too paralyzed by fear or held captive by emotion to do anything to stop it. Sometimes it’s beyond our control, other times it’s self-inflicted.

While mentoring college students through our church last week, Hubbz and I were given the assignment to read through Hebrews. It was there that I found the answer to a question I had posed to God a little over a year ago. (By “posed” I really mean a sarcastic question I had yelled at God as I was slamming a metaphorical door in his face in the middle of a rant.) The question was simple, yet fully-loaded, “WHY!?”

Why aren’t you helping me?

Why is this happening to me?

Why is my heart in shambles?

Why does this hurt me so bad?

Why are you letting me go through this?

The answer to all of it is tucked away in Hebrews. Chapter 5. Verse 8.

“Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.”

I read that and stopped. Then I went back to the beginning and read it again, multiple times. The revelation hit me. It came on God’s time, but I finally got the answer to a question I had long since forgotten I asked. The answer was, “WHY NOT YOU? You are Mine!”

Jesus. God made flesh. The King of all Kings. Lord of Everything. He suffered more than any of us can even fathom… So why not us? Why do we think we are exempt from suffering? Why are we so audacious to think we are above life sucking sometimes? Jesus, God as Man, had to learn obedience through suffering, so shall we.

Suffering isn’t a sentence or a circumstance or a punishment. I am going to go out on a limb and risk looking like a crazy religious-freak and say suffering is a blessing. (Stop rolling your eyes, I can’t believe I just said that either- but go with me on this.) If you are a believer, through suffering we are forced to rely on God. When we rely on God we (hopefully) seek comfort in Him. God in turn gives us His Word, His Grace and His Love. With this we are able to become more Christ-Like and thus, live in obedience to God.

When life sucks, there are a range of emotions and circumstances that happen, if we can focus our eyes on God we can get through it. As we push through each trial we are given the opportunity to seek God deeper. An opportunity to obey the Creator of the Universe. The same creator that numbered the hairs on your head and the steps of your path. Take heart, for God is good, even in the suffering.