FINDING JOY IN SUFFERING

 

FINDING JOY IN SUFFERING

I don't know anyone

Who likes to SUFFER

I certainly don't-

Do you?

BUT Jesus found JOY

in suffering

Because he was offering

HIS LIFE up for others-

FOR US

And I think that

That is the ONLY WAY-

We can find JOY in it=

Is offering up ourselves-

OUR sufferings for others

Saint Paul wrote:

“Brothers and sister:

NOW I rejoice

In my suffering 

For your sake

And in my flesh

I am filling up

What is lacking

In the afflictions of Christ

On behalf

Of his body-

Which is the CHURCH

….....”                                                                                      Colossians 1:24

FIND joy in suffering 

OFFER it up for God

Offer it up for others

And a UNIFIED CHURCH in Christ Jesus

The world tells us

Our goal in life

Should be happiness

And we find that happiness

In money and materialism-

In sex-and in having a perfect body

NOTHING could be

Further from the truth

For All these kinds of happiness 

Are fleeting

We can only find true happiness-

TRUE JOY=in FINDING GOD

In finding Jesus

Nowhere else

“You make known to me

The PATH OF LIFE

You fill me with JOY

In your presence

With eternal pleasures

At your right hand”                                                                       Psalm 16:11

“The prospect 

Of the righteous is JOY

But the HOPES of the wicked

Come to nothing”                                                            Proverbs 10:28

A few hundred years later

Saint Francis of Assisi

Came along

He spoke to

His companion=Brother Leo

“PERFECT JOY-is-upon

REACHING their destination-

IS to be rejected-called names-beaten

and tossed aside

And to bear it all

And be JOINED

With the sufferings of Christ”

That would be PERFECT JOY 

For Saint Francis

A bit extreme

To say the least

BUT we should ALWAYS

Offer up our sufferings to God

For the sake of others

I have always done so=SINCE

Being besieged by intense

Chronic pain since the age of 22

“NOW if we are children-

Then we are heirs-

Heirs of God

And co-heirs of Christ

IF indeed 

We share in his sufferings

In order

That we may also

SHARE in his glory”                                                         Romans 8:17

UNITE your sufferings

With God and Jesus

For the sake of OTHERS

There is NO other way

TO FIND JOY IN SUFFERING 

In Jesus' name 

Robert P. Wallman

7-16-16

Ps        INSPIRED by an article in LIVING FAITH MAGAZINE by Amy Welborn

And 11-8-17 and 8-12-2026