Listen. I promise what I’m about to tell you is true. But it’s gonna be hard to hear. However, I do think it will help you in your suffering seasons.

 

Every ounce of pain has deposited a measure of preparation for your life with Christ.

 

His heart is that we would become one with Him as He is one with the Father.

 

Oneness is costly.

 

We see the following with the life of Jesus:

 

Sorrow

Grief

Loneliness

Betrayal

Abandonment

Slander

He was misunderstood often

Falsely accused

Weeping

Pleading for another way

Persecuted by His own people

Sold out for mere jealousy

Conspiracies rose against Him within the religious sect

 

Now here’s the thing I’ve learned:

Every time one of these things happens to me I understand I just entered deeper into oneness with Christ.

 

In essence, I now know Him more intimately. How He felt. What it was like in a measure to be rejected. There is a reason He was called the man of sorrows.

 

In following Him I can also see these things:

 

Honor

Joy

Celebration

Power

Anointing

Healing

Deliverance

Kindness

Gentleness

Long suffering

Compassion

Righteous indignation

And more…

 

All of which I’ve seen grow in me from my own painful seasons.

 

It is the good and the bad season that draws us into oneness with Christ. One without the other doesn’t quite cultivate a fullness of who He is and how He operates.

 

So, I’m learning to rejoice in affliction, to be abased and to abound in contentment, to extend grace to the unlearned, and to offer my hand towards healing.

 

The motive of my heart is everything to Him and the inner work tilled and plowed in rough places and crooked journeys, well, all prepare us for the greatness of God working in us.

 

It doesn’t remove the realness of the pain but it does offer hope that what I learned in the pain is what will also crush the enemy’s head should I allow it to be used by God.