Good morning…
“God sent Jesus to make free persons of us,” points out spiritual mentor Henri Nouwen. “He has chosen compassion as the way to freedom. That is a great deal more radical than you might at first imagine. It means that God wanted to liberate us, not by removing suffering from us, but by sharing it with us. Jesus is God-who-suffers-with-us.”
Salvation. Freedom. Wholeness. This is God’s ultimate plan for each and every one of us. God sent Jesus to free us, to liberate us, but he chose a weird way to orchestrate salvation. Compassion is God’s way to freedom. Compassion literally means “to suffer together.” Among those who research emotions, compassion is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and you feel motivated to step close, to help relieve, to join with the one suffering. Freedom comes from God shouldering life’s painful boulders with us. The strength of the LORD powerfully permeates us, and we are able to not only survive, but we freely thrive with God beneath the hardships of life.
I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become (2 Corinthians 12:7b-10, MSG).
…Sue…
