Life is a process and the spiritual life is a process on steroids. The challenge of the spiritual life is to drop all the mask that society, religion and a multitude of forces try to get us to wear. This spiritual process when examined through the lens of Perfect Love creates an incredible sense of confidence or progressively growing Faith.
“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” – Romans 5:3-4
Just in case you didn’t get the memo – life will produce suffering. The key to the suffering being “good” suffering is the growth of Faith in 3 key areas:
1)The Completeness of The Sacrifice – you are Reconciled or connected to God through the blood of Jesus. You are no longer under the law with its punishments and consequences. What you are going through was All planned out for you by God.
2)The Power of God – at each moment the suffering is Exactly and Only what is Allowed by God for you. He could stop it at any time and He will stop it as soon as the Faith is grown, perseverance developed and or the light is shinned to another.
3)The Love of God – Gods very nature and every fiber of His being IS LOVE, PERFECT LOVE that my small mortal human mind could never hope to fathom. As a result of this each and every moment to include and especially so the suffering is given to each of us to develop or Faith, Hope, Peace, Patience and most importantly our Love for one another.
Resting in the above 3 Faith based realities has created a Peace for me that I Never had through religious pursuits.
For me it wasn’t Hell that got me to love God, it was the growing understanding that He Is Perfect Love and His Love for me is beyond human capacity to comprehend. I have found that the more I rest in this idea, the more Abundant my life is, the less I fear death and the Greater my love for others becomes.
BeGraceFull.com