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Friday's Faith
In Grief, We Groan even as God Groans...
~Tommy and Angie Prince
The Spirit is not always experiencing joy. Think of what the Spirit goes through on our behalf, the groans, the deep pleadings, and I wonder how that might be related to our suffering...
We don't have enough appreciation for suffering - there's a lot of groaning and moaning to be done. We do not have yet the hope that we are hoping for or it could not be called "hope," for hope is not hope that already has what's hoped for. Who hopes for what he already has? Who has seen what he is hoping for? Hope that is seen is no hope at all. And to not have it is to suffer, to wait, to long for, and hopefully to learn patience as we await it.
That is the job of our mourning, to adapt to this horrible reality that we do not have what we are yet hoping for...and that will involve much groaning, much hurting, many tears, indeed, guttural cries in missing our beloved, in longing for our beloved, in grieving a present world that no longer contains our beloved. It is not right that she is not here, but she is not and to THAT we must adapt?
A woman wrote me today that my description on my blog about being in the middle of "tough love" with my daughter was actually, in her opinion, being in the middle of "LOVE" for my daughter, "REAL LOVE," for real love is not all about "feel good" love. I wept when I read it.
And neither is our Lord's love for us all about "feel good" love. He groans for us. In our distress, He is distressed. In our sorrow, He sorrows. In our weeping, He weeps alongside us. To not know this kind of suffering is to not know our Lord, for He "is a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." This world is not as He wants it. This world greatly misses His mark. It is not the loving world He created it to be.
And it is in this context of suffering, of groaning...the creation groaning, we are groaning, the Spirit groaning for us that His spirit inspires Paul to say...
"But we know that in all things God works together for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."
But He did not say we would necessarily "feel good" in the midst of His working those things out. Indeed, He warned us we would suffer. And not only that we would suffer, but that we would suffer like Him...*
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~Goethe
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Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
--Psalm 130, ~Psalm 130, De profundis, King James Bible version
מִמַּעֲמַקִּים קְרָאתִיךָ יְהוָה.
אֲדֹנָי, שִׁמְעָה בְקוֹלִי:
תִּהְיֶינָה אָזְנֶיךָ, קַשֻּׁבוֹת-- לְקוֹל, תַּחֲנוּנָי.
