Day 15:: The Risk Of Grace

"His [Moses'] comfortable existence quickly became an amazing adventure."
The path of obedience and deliverance was through the valley of suffering.

Pain produces character in our lives like no amount of pleasure possibly can. Failure and rejection force us to seek God's face just as Moses did. When we go to him in desperation, our ears and our hearts are more open to him than ever before. In that face-to-face encounter, God can expose and purge away impurities in our behavior and our motivations. ... Suffering and repetition of trusting God in those painful times makes our faith grow in him. 

• Suffer from following Christ? Yep. You don't indulge in the worldly pleasures. You don't get to have a million friends, especially when they aren't true. Suffer from not following Christ? More. You don't have the riches of heaven. You don't have peace. Or joy. You don't feel the real kind of love. 
• How do most Christians respond to suffering? I can't speak for 'most' of us, but I can speak for myself. I don't think I deal with suffering very well honestly. I don't even know if I deal with it at all. That's my problem. When something is going wrong with any part of my life, I mostly just ignore it. :/ Not good, I know. But its like, if I can't see it happening, I won't have to do anything about it.
• I don't feel like anything that could happen to me to be considered true 'suffering'. Suffering is dying with AIDS in Africa or running for your life in Ghana or Iraq or living in absolute poverty like so many people here are. 
• Suffered for my faith lately? Sure I have.  I know that in order for me to be able to follow closer to Christ, I just can't participate in things. And by staying away from it, I have suffered in my flesh and felt lonely or sad. I want so bad to just say yes sometimes. I've lost a few friends. I wish that the answer to 'why' would just come without wait. But you know what.... What I have waiting for me out weighs every single thing my flesh suffers against while I'm on this earth. :)
• They were commended for their faith, yet none of them had received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. Heb 11:39-40 yeah. that's some powerful words.