Sharing the Struggle

The Lord will meet us where we are, then bring us to where He wants us to be. 

When you read through the psalms, you cannot help but understand that whether you see David as faithful or flawed, he was utterly transparent. David hid nothing from God, and by writing down his innermost thoughts, struggles, and questions as psalms, he gave all of humanity an inside look at “becoming.”

Seeing other people’s struggles throughout the biblical account has often ministered to me much more than seeing their victories. Indeed, seeing the victories gives me great encouragement and much hope, but it’s seeing the struggles that truly ministers to me, because it’s the struggles to which I can truly relate. I need to know that Jesus wept, that Thomas doubted, that Peter stumbled, and that David hurt. It is in those places of struggle that humanity can deeply relate, so it is there— in the vulnerability and intimacy of human struggle— that Christ meets us and draws us upward into a new experience of victory. 

God made sure David’s psalms would be a part of the Bible, because we need to see this inner battle. We need to see and identify with the struggle. Those struggling out on the battlefield, need to hear from others out on the battlefield. “Like” only understands “like,” and we mustn’t get frustrated when we try to share our certain experiences with others who cannot yet understand them or relate to them. David’s life ministers to me because I can relate to him— and because seeing his struggles meets me where I am, rather than where others may want me to be. 

O Lord, teach us to be gracious and patient with those who are “becoming.” Thank You for meeting us where we are, and taking our hand to lead us into the glorious victory of where You want us to be. 

(1 John 3:2,3) Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.

(Phil 3:13,14) Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

(1 Pet 4:13) But rejoice that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed at the revelation of His glory.

(Rom 8:17) And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ--if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him.

(Phil 3:10,11) I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

(2 Cor 3:18) But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.