NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

Having Heart In A Sometimes Heartless World Day 60 - Month in summary Scripture focus: So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. Romans 12:1-2 The Message 1. Everybody hurts. Suffering can produce spiritual growth, or become a stumbling block. 2. Humility and willingness to consider a different way of thinking about our pain will be necessary for us to adopt a different view of suffering. 3. It is natural to want to be happy and avoid suffering. We have a choice: try to run from our pain, self-medicate our misery, or lean into the suffering - believing more in God's power and willingness to rescue than our own ability to run fast or self-medicate to the point of numbness. It will require a big heart to figure out what Jesus means when he says that those who suffer are blessed. Although the pursuit of happiness is natural, the pursuit of joy requires faith. 4. Vision, identity, purpose, discipline and belief - five words that can help us understand our behavior in the face of suffering. 5. Just because we honor God with what we say and where we spend our Sunday mornings does not mean that we are drawing near to God. How we suffer - whether cyclically or productively - is an indicator of whether we are in intimate relationship with God or simply going through the motions. 6. Suffering happens. What is crucial to remember in the midst of any season of suffering is this: God sees our misery, hears our cries for relief, responds and rescues - in the way he sees fit. There is a God - we did not get the job. Productive suffering requires that we acknowledge God's authority in all things. He will respond in his time, in his way, in keeping with his prevailing purposes. We follow his lead, not vice versa. 7. Anytime our lives do not reflect God's prevailing purposes - we're a cracked pot. We're marred. And that's bad - but not the end of the story. God will take us and throw us back on the wheel. He'll form us into another pot, shaping us as he sees fit. He'll turn us into a water pitcher or an ashtray, a decorative bowl or a serving dish - as he sees fit. Surrendering to the reality of our "cracked-potted-ness" informs how we suffer. It requires that we humble ourselves to the process. Spinning around on that potter's wheel may leave us dizzy and a bit sea sick. But it's part of the process. 8. Sometimes I think believers hate to name a problem because they fear what others will think of their God. God's reputation doesn't need our protection. Again, sometimes we not only deny the existence of problems but we minimize their magnitude as well. Neither denial or minimization is God honoring. Both are defenses that can serve a purpose; they are understandable. But neither is indicative of productive suffering. 9. We suffer cyclically when we speak "the language of opposite reaction" - the third form of false spirituality that keeps us stuck in cyclical suffering. (When someone's insides and outsides don't match.) It is appropriate to mourn in the midst of suffering. That's not a sign of spiritual weakness - but of honesty. Acknowledging our pain is one way we express confidence in our God. It is honest. It neither minimizes nor denies the problem. Acknowledging suffering is in no way diminishing God's character - or ours. 10. When one person makes the decision to suffer productively - many people benefit. 11. Sometimes suffering is the result of remaining faithful. People throughout history have found it easy to blame self, God or others for suffering - but that doesn't make this simple and shallow understanding right. 12. The experience of suffering is not just the result of physical loss - but also the by-product of mental pressure and the effects of misery on the mind. If how we think and perceive can increase our experience of suffering, then maybe if our minds are given a new way to understand and perceive suffering - perhaps we can find some relief from our pain. 13. Regardless of the reasons for suffering: our faithfulness, our fickleness, or fate - we must prepare ourselves for battle. The basic toolkit for recovery from suffering must include: eight hours of sleep per night, nutritious meals, daily exercise, a daily commitment to strengthening our spiritual muscles, and active participation in a community whose values match our own - or, whose values are those we long to accept as our own, and, last but not least - relationships that encourage our training. 14. Cyclical suffering happens when we distract ourselves with the "whys" rather than asking God the better question - "What do you want me to do now?" 15. Never under-estimate the power of one small act of kindness; it may be the hand God uses to nourish the faltering faith of a wounded warrior and provide the next right step towards restoration. 16. Mere mortals tend to define their experience by looking around; we will need to develop the ability to look up if we're going to learn how to suffer productively. This completes the first sixty steps (and the second month) of your 365 step journey; I pray you are nearer to God as a result of the steps you've taken this week. Recommended reading: Leviticus 24 in the morning; Proverbs 11 in the evening Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23 TNIV Click "Comments" Below to Join the Discussion Scroll down to the Archive Section to View Previous Devotionals.