Choosing Pain for a Greater Glory
Gracefully Broken- Healthy Discomfort
Last week, the song that couldn't leave my head was Undignified.
This week, I won’t tell you what the name of the song is, but you should be acquainted with the following lines.
When we pray
He answers us
When we cry
He hears our voice
We are not alone
God is with us
Emmanuel, Emmanuel
I see you singing along. Now you can proceed to today's newsletter.
It's Sunday, the first Sunday in October. The time is presently 1:42 am and hours from now, I'd be in the tabernacle of my Father, universally joining the rest of the believers all around the world in singing praises to God once again.
But as I am sat on this three-seater chair, my hair loose down, my legs one curled up and one stretched out, I am thinking to myself of how we have truly settled and reclined in the chair of “convenience”.
Moments before now, I sought a sermon to watch though worn out and with a half-packed luggage for a three-day event, I was eager to feed my starving soul. I knew the Minister I wanted to listen to already, I just needed to get fixated on which of his numerous sermons I wanted to listen to and then alas, I found one.
Almost an hour and twenty minutes after, I am here sitting by the torchlight ruminating on the message of the sermon. Seeing the frailty of man and wondering to myself how easy it is for the modern-day believer to be keenly accustomed to the kind of convenience that accommodates a life in which God is not the balance. A life that excludes God in the grand scheme of things.
The sermon focused on the blessing of pain, discomfort and inconvenience with numerous biblical examples. And truly to think of it, was it normal for Job to say
“Though he slay me, yet will I serve him”
Or for Jacob to choose to become a prisoner for a crime he didn't commit and could have easily turned on Potiphar’s wife?
Or for the three Hebrew boys to see fire and say “We will rather die than bow down to this golden image”…. For them to say “And even if God decides not to save us, so be it!”
Or for Jesus to choose to die a disheartening death on the cross and still say “Father, not my will but yours”?
***********
See
The Bible is complete
These sufferings and inconveniences must be the reason why Paul said in Romans
”For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.“
Romans 8:18 NKJV
As I get to the end of the sermon, dozing in between, eyes pregnant with sleep, I take a look at the part of my wrist that hot oil had splashed on the night before while cooking and I look at the skin backing my the palm of my other hand and look at the two other small burns I had gotten weeks earlier but are already healed and then it all made sense.
In choosing the path of pain, it will never be convenient but for the greater glory it will produce it will be wise that we pray for God to give us the grace to choose our path of pain wisely helping us through it likewise. And while the answers may not come immediately or speedily, it is all for a greater glory! That the Glory of God may be made manifest. Revealed and Exalted
My fresh marks from the oil splash may still hurt now but give it a few days, I may not even remember such happened to me until there is a reason to look at my wrist again. For the previous ones whose scars are still obvious but no longer hurt, they are there to serve as reminders of the temporariness of pain in what may seem like a forever process.
Weeping may endure for a night
But joy comes in the morning
The number of your scars are the number of your victories. The path of pain you are choosing now or are about to choose is of tangible measure in the degree of the revealing of God’s Glory! All for your good!
Dear friend
I know it's not easy
But for the sake of a future perfected in God’s will, align yourself by choosing pain today. By choosing that seemingly unattainable inconvenience.
”The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, But the Lord tests the hearts.“
Proverbs 17:3 NKJV
Till next week Dear Sibling
I love you!
TFA💜
Honestly, it's not easy going through moments of pain. The early part of this year was very challenging, filled with painful as well as shameful experiences. But in and through it all, I realize that God was (and is still) always with me.
While crying over the ashes in my hands—a remnant of something precious I once cherished—he told me to forget the former things, and watch as he gives me beauty for those ashes. Nothing is wasted with God.
Thank you very much for this post, Fiyin. God bless you.