What Will Today Hold For You
Barb Roberts | Wednesday, December 15, 2010 at 2:53PM What Will Today Hold For You?, 12.15.10
What will today hold for you? Perhaps you went to bed last night with a heavy heart or a tired body or a confused mind. You may have slept fitfully and awakened feeling sluggish, unrested, hurried and harried and dreading this day. Will it be a repeat of yesterday? Might you have some of the same disagreements you had yesterday? Are the stressors in your life going to increase rather than decrease with the added pressures of today?
As you look at your little ‘corner of the world’ and see those around you enjoying and celebrating the Christmas holiday season and looking forward to the New Year, and you recognize that you are definitely not enjoying OR celebrating, what will you do with your personal pain?
You’ve heard the expression – “no pain; no gain” – and you may have resonated with it in terms of exercise, dieting, or other such mundane life events. I wonder if you have ever stopped to ponder this expression in the context of the Christmas and Easter seasons -- where we have the ultimate example of the gain that comes from pain – the pain of the birth of a Baby in a manger, the difficult life the Incarnate Son of God lived here on this earth, culminating in His death on the cross and the eternal benefit for all who accept the Christ of Christmas and the Risen Lord of Easter.
God is a God of new beginnings. God is a God of love. God is the Redeemer. The new beginning of Christmas, with the birth of the Christ-Child, speaks to us - who fear that today will be the same as yesterday - of the HOPE that today is a new day – a new beginning. The God of love reminds us that His love is ever new and eternal. The Redeemer God shows us that God can and does redeem our pain. He invades our life with people and events that direct us; He graces us with wisdom and direction.
What will today hold for you? It is a new day – one that God has made.
Reader Comments (1)
Thanks Barb. This reminds me that not everyone at this time of year will be resonating with the message that it "Tis the season to be jolly." And I appreciate also the reminder that spiritual pain can be spiritual gain.
I've thought alot about pain and suffering recenlty. I have two recent posts on these matters: Take Up Your Cross and The Cross and Suffering.
One point I made is that there seem to be two different types of suffering presented in Scripture: (1) Suffering you accept in the pursuit of some greater good and (2) Suffering that is inflicted upon you by forces outside of your control.
I tried to build the case that Jesus responds very differently to the two types of suffering. He tells us to accept Type 1 suffering when called by God to do so but he constantly fights against and alleviates Type 2 suffering. I suggested that we often tell people,mistakenly, to respond to Type 2 suffering with Jesus' advice about how to respond to Type 1 suffering.
I won't repeat the whole argument here as anyone can read the blog posts if they are interested. And if you have a chance to read those two posts, I'd love to get your thoughts (a coffee might be in order). After all, you have spent your career following Jesus' lead in fighting against Type 2 suffering.