Growing Through Suffering

"And he said: Abba, Father, all things are possible for you; remove this cup from me; but not what I want, but what you want" (Mark 14:36).

When the desolation and sadness of Gethsemane hangs over us like a heavy cloud, we must submit patiently, although with tears but without fear or doubt, and drink the cup that the Father brings to our lips. "Not my will but yours be done", our broken heart must say.

In God's way, mysteriously for us and just as it happened with the Lord Jesus, that cup contains in its bitter sediment the precious stone and gold of perfection. We must be put into the crucible to be refined. Christ was perfected in Gethsemane not by prayer but by suffering. "For it was fitting that suffering should perfect the author of salvation..." (Heb. 2:10). The cup had to be drunk because the suffering had to continue and produce its fruit of perfection.

We are to be perfected through many hours of darkness and oppression from the power of hell, through many intense conflicts with the prince of this world, and by drinking many bitter cups. Crying out against the painful process and the purifying flame of the Father's crucible is natural and is not a sin to the extent that there is surrender and submission to God's will and devotion to his glory.

If our hearts are true to God, we can cry out to him about his way of working and get relief from his painful process. We can cry out against the crucible and the flame that purifies and perfects us. God allows this cry, listens to it and answers it, not taking us out of the crucible, but sending us more than one angel to strengthen us. (E.M. Bounds).

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