Forsake me not...

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I have just read the Morning and Evening reading for today, 25May14, from Spurgeon, and I really liked it, so I am re-posting it here to keep it and to share it with you.

Morning and Evening
Charles H. Spurgeon
May 25, 2014

Morning Reading

Psalm 38:21  Forsake me not, O LORD: O my God, be not far from me.

Frequently we pray that God would not forsake us in the hour of trial and temptation, but we too much forget that we have need to use this prayer at all times. There is no moment of our life, however holy, in which we can do without His constant upholding. Whether in light or in darkness, in communion or in temptation, we alike need the prayer, "Forsake me not, O Lord." "Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe." A little child, while learning to walk, always needs the nurse's aid. The ship left by the pilot drifts at once from her course. We cannot do without continued aid from above; let it then be your prayer to-day, "Forsake me not. Father, forsake not Thy child, lest he fall by the hand of the enemy. Shepherd, forsake not Thy lamb, lest he wander from the safety of the fold. Great Husbandman, forsake not Thy plant, lest it wither and die. 'Forsake me not, O Lord,' now; and forsake me not at any moment of my life. Forsake me not in my joys, lest they absorb my heart. Forsake me not in my sorrows, lest I murmur against Thee. Forsake me not in the day of my repentance, lest I lose the hope of pardon, and fall into despair; and forsake me not in the day of my strongest faith, lest faith degenerate into presumption. Forsake me not, for without Thee I am weak, but with Thee I am strong. Forsake me not, for my path is dangerous, and full of snares, and I cannot do without Thy guidance. The hen forsakes not her brood, do Thou then evermore cover me with Thy feathers, and permit me under Thy wings to find my refuge. 'Be not far from me, O Lord, for trouble is near, for there is none to help.' 'Leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation!'"

"O ever in our cleansed breast,
Bid Thine Eternal Spirit rest;
And make our secret soul to be
A temple pure and worthy Thee."

End of Morning reading.

Now I have to throw my two cents in just because I can.  Of all the old saints I have read, Spurgeon is one of my favorites; the way he writes is so comforting, and so real, read what he says a couple of times and you will see what I'm talking about, I hope.  Is not that your prayer sometimes?  God please don't forsake me.  'Whether in light or in darkness, in communion or in temptation, we alike need the prayer, "Forsake me not, O Lord."'.  Who is "we"?  That is Spurgeon, and you, and me, and all those who have been translated from the darkness into the light; all redeemed saints.

I do need to pray like that, and I often do; mostly when I start to think about all the impossibilities in my tiny world, many times and more often than not, I am crying to God in the exact same manner, please don't leave me oh God, forgive me, help me.  Amazingly, God helps me, and He has never left me, nor He ever will, and I have been forgiven.  I can see His hand even in the most intense pain episodes in my life, whether it be emotional or physical pain, He has always helped me to go through all things, and I praise His holy name for His amazing grace.

I can see how God has planned every single event in my life, and I understand and believe what He has planned for my future, all this based on what He says in His word; I didn't imagine it or devised it, but God himself wrote it down for me, and for you.  That is what the gospel promises are all about, right?  One of them is the answer to that prayer for help, God says "I will never leave you nor forsake you", so when I pray 'please do not forsake me oh God', He answers me through His word and says, "I never will".  Is not that marvelous?  Yes it is.

It is marvelous because God never fails to keep His word, He promised: Isaiah 41:10  Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

So when Spurgeon says 'There is no moment of our life, however holy, in which we can do without His constant upholding', I understand exactly what he means, don't you?  Our being upheld by God is because of our standing before God, and our standing is that of sons and daughters only because of Jesus; and what He has done for us; even our believing was acquired by Him on the cross, my faith is a gift from His hand.  The Lord is mighty to save...and who can stay His hand?

My God is so awesome that just thinking about it makes me rejoice, what condescension from my Father!  What an amazing grace!  If you understand what the gospel really means you have no choice but to get excited about it, and how I pray that you do.

I see my need, and only one person can help; I see no other choice but to ask Him for it, for He gives it to His children liberally:  James 1:5  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him...... James 1:12  Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.  We endure because He helps us, our very asking for help is part of the help He provides, as also are old saints like Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Have a nice day.

http://makariotes.blogspot.com

Remember to delight yourself in The Lord...

The way that I discovered, or the way that God revealed it to me, what it means to be blessed, was right after I broke my back; I was reading the beatitudes and I wondered what does it really mean to be blessed the way Jesus was using the word.  Makarios is the word He used.  I had recently acquired a Hebrew-Greek key word study bible and I looked it up, here it is:

G3107
μακάριος
makarios
mak-ar'-ee-os
A prolonged form of the poetical μάκαρ makar (meaning the same); supremely blest; by extension fortunate, well off: - blessed, happy (X -ier). (Strong's).

In the lexical aids to the new testament section of that bible, the definition is amplified into this: "blessed, to be fully satisfied, makariotes, in the NT, it indicates the state of the believer in Christ (Matt. 5:3-11, "Blessed... for my sake"; Luke 6:20-22 Blessed...for the Son of man's sake") He is indwelt by God because of Christ and as a result is fully satisfied.----Makarios differs from happy (from the English root 'hap', favorable circumstances).  In the biblical sense, a blessed person is one whom God makes fully satisfied, not because of favorable circumstances, but because He indwells the believer through Christ.....Makarios is the one who is in the world yet independent from the world; his satisfaction comes from God and not from favorable circumstances".

That definition made a huge impact in the way I understood God, and in the way that I thought I knew myself.  I saw the reality of the greatness by which God rescued  me; the not understanding happy as I understood it before, the English way, now I knew the real meaning of the word blessed; and now I knew my union with Christ in a different way.

It also meant that when Jesus was teaching on that occasion, He chose to start His sermon on the mount with a description of those who are indwelt by Him through His Spirit, and He calls them makarios; and they are those He describes this way:
Mat 5:2  And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
3  Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5  Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
6  Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7  Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8  Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10  Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11  Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

I know what it means to be persecuted for righteousness sake, for Jesus' sake; I have been mocked, scoffed at, slandered, railed, and accused of things I never did, I have even lost a job because of this; the problem was that I told every one I could about Jesus, and not only that, I lived for Him and it showed in everything I did, or almost everything since I admit that I made huge mistakes, mostly not saying something when I should have said something.  I am not boasting, all I'm saying is that I rejoice in that because great is my reward in heaven, and yes, I am satisfied knowing that.

Makarios are the poor in spirit, they that mourn, the meek, they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted.  If you are a believer, a real one, not someone who just talks the talk, then you are all those things, and you will be persecuted and mocked, and scoffed at (sooner or later), and your reward will be great in heaven; in this earth and in this world you will have tribulation, that is a promise, but wait until you get there, to you eternal habitation, and great will be your reward.  Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him.

Today I sit here writing this and thinking back to that time when I understood what it means to be blessed, and I see my life and everything that is wrong with it, and I remember that I didn't ask to be blessed, God just blessed me out of His mercy for the sake of Christ, and according to the good pleasure of His will.  That is the real reason why I am a blessed man, because God dwells in me, there is no other reason.

It is easy to say that you are a blessed person when things are going well for you, isn't it?  What happens when things go wrong?  Do you still feel blessed?  No you don't.  But you are still a blessed child of God.  When things go wrong, and wrong they will go at times, I don't feel blessed, I don't feel happy, and nothing is peachy and dandy; but my feelings have nothing to do with my position in Christ.  I can feel desperate, I can feel that no one cares, I can feel that God doesn't make sense, I can feel that life is not worth living, I can feel that I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but those are just feelings, the feelings of a weary soldier; and there is nothing wrong with feeling that way; what is wrong is that I forget what God is doing, and that I start complaining.

In the eternal perspective nothing has changed when things are not going according to my liking, in fact, the eternal perspective is that in this world I will have tribulation, and I will make it to the final day of my life with faith that perseveres; this is a fact, it is a spiritual reality.  He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it until the very last day, Paul says in Philippians, and that means that the God who saved me from hell will see to it that I have been conformed into the image of His Son even to the last second I abide in this body made of flesh.

So what are these favorable circumstances I mentioned above?  You know them well, you got a good job, you got a good salary, you got a house or two, you have a car, or two; you have money in your checking account, you paid the bills this month, you made the rent, or the two mortgages; you had food, sometimes in excess; all your relationships with people are smooth, every body likes you, and you go to bed at night without a worry; you can even throw some recreation in there, you played your guitar, or two; you watched a good movie, or two; you even had a chance to take a little vacation or a long weekend off.  Life is good, right?

You don't need to be a Christian to have those favorable circumstances, indeed it appears that those who are not Christians have those circumstances all the time; they get fat in abundance, as Asaph says; they really don't need God at all, God is not in their thoughts at all, they indulge in all kinds of excess and have no regrets.  The wicked prosper, says my bible.

Favorable circumstances are what the ungodly desire, and the truth is that we all do desire them; but for the born again believer that desire will change sooner or later, and it will change because your delight will eventually change from what every body wants to what God wants.  It is true, delight yourself in The Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Your desire will be the same as that of David:

Psa 27:1  A Psalm of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
Psa 27:2  When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.
Psa 27:3  Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.
Psa 27:4  One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.
Psa 27:5  For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.

Shortly after I broke my back, I lost my cars, my house, my furniture, my gun collection, my watch collection, my insurance, then my job, and then my income; little by little everything was taken away; and it was then that God showed me what makarios means.  A few months after that I started writing this blog.  Sometimes I go back and read those old posts and I trip out on how much my thinking has changed, I see how much God has changed me through affliction, and I feel blessed; really blessed.  Now my feelings are lined up with what God wants (at least more than before), but I still cry out to God for mercy, and for grace, and forgiveness.  Now I see a little bit more clearly how depraved I really am, and how good God is.

So I am writing this to remember what makarios means, to remember why I write this blog, that I even started making bracelets and called them 'makarios'; which I will continue to make when the time comes; it is good to remember God, to remember that He will never leave me nor forsake me, to remember that God is my light and my salvation, to remember that I need not fear anything or anybody; to remember that when Jesus says blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God, He is talking about me, and you, if you believe.

I hunger and thirst for righteousness, and I shall be filled, and satisfied.

Have a nice day, you, blessed one.

http://makariotes.blogspot.com

Of light and hummingbirds...

For the last three days I have been sitting in the back yard just before sunset, everything is quiet, there is no wind, and it is hot outside, I enjoy sitting there looking at the trees, and all the birds which live on them.  Every afternoon for the last three days I have seen that hummingbird in the picture, sometimes it just hovers in one spot for a few seconds and then takes off and does some acrobatic flying for my delight.

He lives in the macadamia tree in my neighbor's backyard, he has a partner.  There is another big tree two houses down and guess what, there is another hummingbird family living there too; sometimes the two of them argue in mid air, and then they start chasing each other in the air; it is an amazing show I tell you.  It is really an air show, these tiny birds fly so fast and are so agile, it blows my mind.

The one who lives in the macadamia tree actually knows who I am, or I'd like to think so, he comes to take a mist shower in the mornings when I water the grass, he just flies around and in front of the hose stream and lets the water hit him; the first time he did that I thought it was a huge bug and I actually tried to spray him with the hose but he flew out of the way at an incredible speed; that was more than a year ago, he was tiny then, probably about 1 inch, and he still does it whenever I water the grass

These tiny creatures are an amazing thing; they make me think that God has a beautiful mind; they actually make me think about God in all His power, and in His amazing grace towards me.  This is a gift from God to me, that I can actually delight in a tiny creature, and in creation in general, in something so fleeting as a sunset, or a pink cloud.

What amazes me even more is that God delights in everything He has made, after He was finished creating the universe He looked at the whole thing and He said, it is good; then He created man, and He said everything was very good, that tells me He delights in what He has made. I cannot imagine what God feels for His children; if He has given me the capacity to experience joy by observing a creature that flies, and I had no part in making that creature live and be observed by me, except observe it, the joy that God must experience must be infinite in all intensity and duration; it is mind-blowing to think about it, or even try to think about it. God is awesome.

When I slowly think about it and ponder, I have to consider what kind of power He exerted through His Word to bring light into existence with a simple command, let there be light, and there was light, just like that.  Think about it in the physical sense too, light is pure energy, Light behaves as a particle and also as a wave, and this wave is comprised of different vibrational lengths or frequencies, the spectrum of light.  If you think that light behaves as a particle, a photon, this tiny particle travels at 300 thousand kilometers per second (or about 186,416 miles per second), just that fact alone is enough to boggle my brain.  That is an amazing joy filled fact about the nature of light.

Is it not per design that the bible chooses light to describe what kind of being God is?  It is.  It is by His design.  God's being is incomprehensible, it has to be for Him to be Him; and He delights in being known by those He chose to have fellowship with.  It has never been up to man, a creature, to choose to have fellowship with God, it has always been the Lord who has chosen specific individuals to reveal Himself to; since the first man ever created.  You ever wonder why you believe what you believe?  It was God who chose to reveal Himself to you through faith and by His grace.  It is a supernatural event that you believe the gospel.

My grand daughter sent me this picture of the sun, I actually saw her take it; she was rejoicing when she saw it, check it out:

She told me the sun is a star, so I told her that the light from the sun takes about 8 seconds to get to the earth, you can do the calculations to determine how far the sun is from the earth, we do not comprehend what that means; me and her are just amazed at the facts.  God is good, and God is light and in Him there is no variableness or shadow of turning, that is what James says, remember James chapter one?  You don't?  Ok, I'll help you remember, here it is:

James 1:16-18  Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. ESV.

That means that the little hummingbird is a gift from above, but also means that He caused us to be born from above by His very word, just as He brought forth light when He created the universe; does that not make you feel awe?  It does me, I am amazed at who the Lord is, and this very amazement is a gift from Him so my joy is reflected back to Him, He glorifies Himself in everything He does; if He didn't He would be a bad God, and that is a contradiction.

We were created for His pleasure, and the pleasure we experience in pondering about His nature, the amazement, the awe, the mind boggling, is all for the purpose of glorifying Himself; I am blessed in the true sense of the word, to realize that He is for me no matter what happens in my life.  Every event in my very short life comes to pass by His design and with the same purpose as all events, His glory.

I had a check up with the doctor this week, my blood analysis numbers do not look good to the doctor; he is suspicious about me having hepatitis, and diabetes, and my cholesterol doesn't look good either; so he ordered more tests to verify some things.  The whole thing doesn't make any sense to me, I hope he is wrong, I have to wait a month to see him again and discuss the results of the new tests, we'll see.

But my point is that this is exactly the same thing I was just talking about; how is God to get glory from my problems?  I have no idea.  He is too awesome for my tiny brain to understand that; but this I know, He will be glorified, even in my death; and that is what is happening, I am dying a little at a time, every day that goes by I am closer and closer to that awesome day in which I will leave this body and this world behind, it is guaranteed to happen, and it will happen, as surely as the sun gives light every morning, and as surely as hummingbirds can fly and turn in a 90 degree angle in mid air.

I have nothing to complain about, in fact complaining would only show how ungrateful I am for God's favors, so I won't.

Did I make you think about God's goodness to you?  I hope so, I really do; that is the reason I am writing this, so that we raise our view to heaven and see the glory of the Most High God, the One who rules and reigns above all things in a beautiful and most holy way, and so that we meditate and rejoice for knowing Him and being known by Him.

Have a nice day, really.

http://makariotes.blogspot.com

Romans 7...

Have you read Romans 7 lately? How about 8 and 9?  No?  I think you should.  That section of Paul's letter is one of those sections of the bible that are amazing to me, it has to be read along with chapter 8 and 9 to get the full impact of what he is saying.  Of course the whole letter is a magnificent book of the bible, perhaps the greatest  in regards to the gospel being explained in its full glory.  I love Romans, but chapters 7, 8 and 9 are on top of the list, and they were running through my brain today, I saw some amazing words in there; read them and you will see what I'm talking about.

Reading this book makes me feel and think different, it really makes me give God the glory, and at the same time it shows me how bad my situation was before He rescued me from the darkness; the whole thing is like a thick curtain in a pitch dark room, and Paul lifts it up little by little to let the light come in, until the full strength of God's grace and mercy, and love is displayed and then it shines like ten thousand suns until all the shadows are gone, and all things are exposed to the light.  I don't know how else to explain it, the gospel is really a glorious drama in which I am an spectator; when the climax comes Jesus receives a standing ovation, or maybe I should say an "on your knees" ovation; just saying 'glory to God' is not enough, in fact I don't think there are words that can describe how amazing the gospel really is, and yet, it is so simple.

Years ago I read somewhere about some preacher, a famous one but I don't remember his name right now, who preached through the book of Romans for eight years; imagine that, that is more than 400 sermons, I think; I don't know the number of sermons, I'm just saying, but I think that is amazing.  That is the work of God.

What else is the work of God?  That you believe; check this out: John 6:28-29  Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?"   Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."   You got that?  You believe because God is working in you.

I should stay on track.  Romans 7.  There Paul says things like this: Rom 7:14-20  For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.  For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (ESV).

I read in some commentary, quite some time ago by the way, that Paul was speaking of his unregenerate state in those verses, but I disagree; Paul is talking about what we all go through in life, as born again believers, otherwise he could not say "I have the desire to do what is right" and "I do the very thing I hate"; an unregenerate person cannot say "I hate my sin" because he or she loves it, and he or she cannot desire to do what is good.  Every non-believer out there is led and held captive by the desires of the flesh and of the mind according to Ephesians 2, so no, Paul is not talking about his unregenerate state.

We all do things that we hate to do, sinful things, and when we desire to do good we find no ability to do it in ourselves; the strength and the willingness to do what is pleasing to God comes from God Himself, that is the point, and the bottom line in my life.  Even when we try we fail, until God enables us to act in a way that accords to holiness and godliness; this is the very reason Paul says this in Philippians 2:12-13  Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

I hate to sin, I really do, but I still sin anyway; sometimes even thinking that God does not like it, and I know that I am not alone in this; all believers go through the same thing, it is heart breaking; we live inside these bodies that are fallen and inundated with sin, even to the very core of our existence; that is why Paul says  Rom 7:23-24  but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

I lost count of how many times I have said those words in my mind 'wretched man that I am', is not that the truth for you too?  I know it is if you are a real believer; only a believer can say those words and mean them.  Have you ever heard a non-believer say that?  I haven't, and I never will, and I never will because it is impossible for an unregenerate person to think that he or she is a wretch before God, not to mention a sinner, the fact is that every single person outside of the faith thinks the best thoughts about themselves, the universe turns around them and their coolness, and most boast in their wrong doings; just listen to what people say on Monday when gathered around the coffee pot and you will see what I'm talking about.

What then?  Are we doomed?  Not at all, hear Paul again: Rom 7:25  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. It is as clear as the Caribbean waters, we are stuck in these bodies that want to sin, and sin will continue to be a part of our daily experience, that is the sad news; but the good news come in Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Read those words again, slowly, and let them sink into your inmost being, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, no condemnation; God doesn't condemn you, He has no guilt trips to load your brain with, this is His word, and it is God Himself who is saying that to you and me, there is no condemnation if you are in Christ, and you are in Christ if Christ is in you, period.  That is the amazing gospel.

Are you living under the crushing weight of guilt?  Are you beating yourself up because you did it again?  "It" being that sin that you constantly struggle with?  Oh I forgot, you don't struggle with anything, right?  Wrong.  Everybody struggles with something, unless you are void of the Spirit, if that is the case, then you love your sin, and the worst part of that is that you don't even think that it is sin, for you it is just having fun; it is "meeting your needs"; a rude awakening awaits you, poor soul.

Anyway, "it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me"; that is what so amazed me this morning, how can this be?  Is not that a problem?  A big problem?  Yes it is, as a matter of fact it is a problem that we cannot solve, no matter how hard we try (and we try indeed, sometimes to the extreme of being religious) and no matter how long you have been walking with Jesus, you will never be able to solve this problem; God is the One who solves it for you, once and forever; it is solved in the cross.

The cross of Jesus is the very reason why Paul says in Romans 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus; the cross and what Jesus took upon himself while He was hanging there bleeding and in agonizing pain, which is the very sin that dwells within you, is the reason why God accepts you as someone who hates sin and cannot stop sinning, until you die; and that my friend, is the marvel of it all, justification by faith in the crucified Christ.  That is the amazing good news of the gospel, at least it is for me, my position has been changed from being a sinner to a child of God who sins but who is not enslaved to sin; now God shows me favor even when I sin since all my sins have been cast as far as the east is from the west to be remembered no more.

Of course we have the other side of the equation, right?  There comes a point in life for all believers in which God reveals the secrets of your heart to you (and you thought you knew yourself), and starts working in you to change through His Spirit, and if you still resist Him, He will chastise you; just as He scourges every son whom He receives; and then you will change a little at a time, until that sin you used to struggle with is a struggle no more and gets buried with the old man.

As always, I hope I have made you think about Jesus, I hope you see what I see; the question 'oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of sin?' finds its answer in Jesus and the cross; that is why we can say with Paul: Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Have a nice day.

http://makariotes.blogspot.com

Real comfort...

I can't remember the number of times that I thought I would not make it through the day, maybe you have no idea what I mean or have never experienced anything like that, but it is not fun.  I will elaborate for you:  you wake up after having a nightmare, and you realize that the nightmare is real.  You feel pain running wild inside the bones in your back, and you barely make it out of bed; you struggle to get dressed, you have no desire for a shower, you want relief, the shower is a relief so you take one.  Now you are thinking about pain medicine, and coffee, but you forgot to set it up the night before so there is none.  Making coffee takes every fiber of your being, everything hurts, you feel nauseous, you feel dizzy, you feel sick, you're hurting all over and you need coffee and pills.

This, you realize, has taken 2 hours of your day, and you are barely awake, luckily there is some coffee left from the day before so you nuke that and drink it, the coffee tastes burnt, where is my pill?  Did I already take it?  I can't remember, so you wait because you don't want to take it twice, it might kill you, or worse, it might send you back into dream land.  2 hours later you know you didn't take it because you can barely move and you are shaking, so you take it now, what a waste of time; 45 minutes go by and you start feeling relief, and even though you have been crying out to God for help since you woke up, now you start giving thanks for opiates, they work; so God gets some more praise, and more thanks.

Then suddenly you start remembering the past, the not-too-distant-past, you remember all the people you tried to help and the way they turned their backs on you, you remember how they made your life miserable and falsely accused you of harassing them, you feel like cursing them, you see the darkness of their hearts, you ask God to help you forgive and forget, and you kind of forgive but you don't forget, the turmoil starts in your fallen mind.  How long Lord?  How long until I can see you face to face?  Soon my son, it is guaranteed to come to pass.

Your life runs in your mind like a silent movie, you wish things were different, you wish you could go back and undo your mistakes, you wish you could rearrange the ugly scenes, you wish you could erase the most depraved acts of your existence, and you keep on wishing until you finally snap out of it because your legs are now cramping, your calf and thigh and waist and back, it is all in a huge cramp that brings you to tears; you try to stretch your back and your legs, and it is not working, nothing works, and you cry for help again, and again; remembering that time in which one of this cramps lasted about an hour and a half, terror strikes.

20 minutes later you are pretty much just tired of it all, you realize that 8 years have gone by and your have not gotten any better, in fact it appears that you are getting worse; and you start thinking about death.  What is the purpose of this way of life?  How can God be glorified in this pain?  The more you think about it, the less it makes sense, then your flesh takes over and anger swells up inside of you, where is my gun?  A 9mm slug through your brain seems like a nice solution to your dilemma; then you think of all the pain your actions will cause, your children will mourn for years, your mother will be devastated, your grand children will be broken and traumatized for the rest of their lives, so you change your mind, and painfully surrender to life as you know it.

How do you like your day so far?  Are you enjoying yourself?  Isn't life great?  Not really.  Then remembrance happens, the good kind, God has never left you nor forsaken you, you look around you and see His hand moving in every detail of your existence, His goodness reaches far back into the day you were born, He has been good to you every single day, He was good to you even when you were not even aware that He existed; you see the place you live in, you see the bed you sleep on, the clothes you are wearing, you see and taste the food you eat, you feel the air entering your lungs, you see the sky, and the clouds, and the trees, and the birds, are you not more important than these?  O you of little faith?  Yeah, I am more important to God than these things.

So is this what it's all about?  Pain and suffering, and the realization that you are one of little faith?  Is it all about thinking that you are more important than a sparrow?  Nobody cares, you think, no one understands what you are going through, you get no sympathy, and no empathy, only entropy, and eventually a painful death; is it like that?  Ah the fallacies of the human heart.  No one is more deceitful than your own heart, and you don't need the devil to help.  Is not this life all vanity?  That is what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities.

You and I know the story will not end like that; you will not die like a dog, you will not be thrown into the dumpster, and you will never ever experience hell; the fact is that this life of faith is as close as we will ever be to hell, and the end of it will only be the realization of our redemption, it will be complete at that point.  You and I will experience bliss, and will actually glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

This earth is only the training camp for the children of God, and as Calvin said, the bible is the school of the Holy Spirit; all the comfort that we will ever need is in those pages of sacred words, all the necessary instructions are there for us to follow, and whatever is not evident is implied; fellowship with the Triune God is attained through His word and prayer, but I often neglect His word, we all do.  God did not leave us like orphans indeed, He gave us Himself in the person of the Spirit, and now we are the temple of God; I think He even humbles Himself to dwell in these broken clay pots.

More than half of your day has gone by in a moment; and now you must lay down, what will the next few hours be like?  There is so much to do and so little motivation to do it; but you lay down anyway because you feel thrashed, it is at this point when you are actually feeling better, the pain has receded and you can actually pray coherently, so you do, you enter His gates with thanksgiving in your heart and praises on your lips; but your struggles do not cease, even when praying, your mind wanders off; as you pray, all kinds of thoughts are coming into your field of view, like images from a black and white movie, and the story repeats itself one more time.

To think that someone else always has it worse than I do is not helpful at all, "at least you are not homeless", or "at least you don't have cancer", or "it could be worse"; what kind of stupid comfort is that?  Is that supposed to be helpful, or make me feel better?  I don't think so.

The real comfort in suffering, physically, or mentally, or spiritually, is knowing that God is sovereign, and all powerful, and that He reigns, and believing it with all of your being, with all of your heart, and mind, and strength.  You are convinced, without a shadow of a doubt, that God reigns even over your pain, and your sorrow, and your weakness, and your struggles.  Your feet are firmly planted on Romans 8; and nothing can move you, and as David says, it is His work, You have put my feet on a rock and put a new song in my lips, You God are my shepherd, you lead me in the paths of righteousness for Your name sake, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

That is real comfort in suffering, God is in control, even in control of my pain, it is a fact that He is the One who allowed it to happen, in fact He decreed it to happen just like it is happening, and all things are moving forward in His perfect plan for me, and for you, all things are working together for your good, and mercy and grace will follow you even into the darkest of times.

 Psa 30:2-5  O LORD my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O LORD, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.
Sing praises to the LORD, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

It turned out this morning that I would be here to live another day, and it is finally over; one day I will wake up in His likeness.

Jesus is King, so have a nice day.

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