As We Are

"We are not alone in our suffering. He knows it."

HE HAD all forms of pain. He felt like He couldn’t breathe. His bones felt out-of-joint (Psalm 22:14). His stomach tossed. His blood poured out of massive wounds. He knew mental anguish. He was mocked and laughed at. He was persecuted for doing right. He was stripped naked and paraded in the streets. He was falsely accused. He knows personally all we suffer with, on a scale people have not grasped. This was pressed on me this morning for a personal reason. But in what I struggled with, I saw Hebrews 4:15 clearly, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

If you’ve had troubles with searing pain. He knows that. If you’ve fought to overcome lung problems. He knows that. If your eyesight has failed and your hearing has been damaged, even these, in the throes of death, He knew. God the Father through His Spirit made sure Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are. Do you get that? They MADE SURE He did.

“They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.” (Psalms 22:13-15)

There is also a sustaining Presence in His death that we’ve not seen. Because only by the power of God could a physical body, the body of God, live through what He lived through, so that death would only come when He willed it. This is why they did not break His legs. This was done to aid death, but finding Him already dead, they didn’t bother (John 19:33). God wouldn’t have any portion of Jesus’ final ending be because of men. Only their condemnation. They hung Him, they condemned Him, but He released His spirit into heaven (Luke 23:46). The devil had no legitimate power over Him (John 14:30). What happened to Jesus was entirely the plan of God.

God Himself chose to die and to have that death be as it was, in that manner, on that scale, with so much pain.

We are not alone in our suffering. He knows it. He watched His mother grieve at the foot of the cross. He knows causing family grief. He knows the pain of leaving family behind. He knows hearing the Spirit alone and that Voice sustaining Him. That moment when only you know what this feels like. I would have no one suffering such as I have suffered, but in it, I have learned what many others have suffered; and there is something which must be said for that. Because in many ways, people disappointed me. They couldn’t identify, didn’t want to identify, and truthfully, I’d spare them from it completely.

But for that one who can’t find Jesus for the darkness swirling around them, someone must shine the Light.

“In the beginning, the Word was already there. The Word was with God. The Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. God made all things by the Word. God did not make anything without him. It is the Word who causes us to live. And because of this, he was the light to all people. The light shines in the dark, and the dark cannot put out the light.” (John 1:1-18 EasyEnglish)

Image by Arnie Bragg from Pixabay


----------
Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com