What Really Changes us

Psalm 41:4-13

Suffering will make you a better or a bitter person but will not leave you where it found you. 

LD

We have a friend who is constantly in pain and suffering from a chronic disease. You can see pain coating his face constantly. Yet, if you ask him ’how he is doing’ the answer is the same. ”Going on dear, going on, Praise the Lord,” that’s his answer. 

I must say that when I first knew him, I did not know what he meant. Many times I didn’t even know how to handle that response. For often it felt like a cliche and as an automated response, but one thing is sure, that has been and is his response always. 

Concluding with praise I have found is his way of not allowing pain to have the last word. Pain has his body but not his identity.  

I don’t know how he does it, I can’t explain it to you, but when I look at him and praise is what I remember, it challenges my moaning about life and encourages me to trust God even more.

David finishes his psalms very often in a hopeful note. He could be sick and in pain and suffering ( see verses 4-9) so much that many of his friends think he is going to die, still he praises God ( see verse 13) 

I believe that that is the secret to allowing suffering to change us for good, I don’t understand it entirely, but I know it is, I have seen it, I have lived it so many times. 

Suffering is going to come, that’s life, but if we choose to keep our eyes on God when we are suffering I know that we will come out on the other sidelooking more and more like Jesus. 

( See 1 Peter 5:10, 2 Timothy 3:12, Isaiah 53:3, John 16:33