Using Suffering

I talked with a pastor friend today and he is discouraged. I told him I understand, I was a pastor for 39 years. Mondays were not always good days for me. Sheep are not always faithful, and at times they act like goats. What I learned from the disappointments of life is that in all of them there is opportunity to draw closer to Jesus our Lord. He too had some down moments and that is why “He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities.” For example, when we feel the sting of the rejection of friends, we are feeling what He felt as He stumbled down the street with a cross on His back. Suffering serves us when it helps us draw near to our Lord. Knowing about Jesus and knowing Him are two different things. Don’t let your sorrows go to waste and rejoice that you have not been nailed to a cross. Jfs

Heb 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.