Do you have situations in your life where you suffer, or where you feel like you have a “cross” to bear? Do you look at others, and wonder why your life sometimes feels like a sacrifice so others can find something that has already been given to them, but they just can’t uncover the veil to see it? I suppose that is one reason why we all suffer, and why we all have trials and afflictions that are difficult to bear, even with God’s help. One way to look at this from a different perspective, is by looking at how a crock pot slowly cooks meat. The crock pot is the correlation (or bridge) to trials and suffering. You begin with a piece of frozen meat from the freezer (trials and suffering to make you cold). Over the course of 6-8 hours, the meat begins to cook and is transformed into tender, delicious, hot, melt in your mouth roast beef! This transformation from frozen to tender is your ego self melting away to see your pain and suffering from a new perspective. A perspective that releases frozen anger and bitterness, leaves judging or trying to change someone else to God, and a pleasant reminder that if we let go of ourselves, we can finally be free.
When we follow and walk down a road where we suffer, we do not have to be overcome by the heavy weights. Instead, we can lift the weight from a powerful source from within. (From song below) This power is the same power that rose Jesus from the grave, the same power that moves mountains when he speaks, the same power that commands the dead to wake, the same power that can calm a raging sea, lives in us. He lives in us…by suffering, by carrying his heavy cross for our sins, and by his sacrifice so that we may seek and find him in our daily walk of life. To love, to restore, to heal, to help, to guide, to give, to laugh, to dance, to grieve, to forgive, to soar, to inspire, to comfort, and to connect as one to carry our own crosses.
Romans 5:3-5 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.