39. CONVERSATION WITH CHRIST

(The Faith Forum Series – Batch 2)

Today, for the second time, my attention was drawn to something I had written years ago, which I found right on time. See, I’ve been feeling a bit down in the dumps lately due to a situation I am currently dealing with in my career…again and which I had dealt with on at least five (5) occasions prior. I was getting tired. I was extremely weary and I felt like I did not have the strength to be dealing with this issue again.

I opened an old Facebook Page that I had deactivated in order to check on something and was immediately greeted with a memory of a picture I had posted on 13th December, 2010, of someone carrying a cross, together with the words I had correspondingly typed.

It was of a conversation I imagined having with the Lord back then and the answers he would give in response, from his Word. Back then, I had felt like I had no choice but to leave a very abusive job where there were also dishonest practices.

Having left sometime nearing the end of November, 2010, I had not a clue as to what was next for me and where I would obtain employment next and where I would get money to continue to sustain myself and pay my monthly rent.

I also had not a clue where I would find my husband (because although everything in my life was going all wrong at the moment, I still wanted to get married and to have a loving family but no respectable suitors were in view and I was feeling incredibly lonely at that time and bereft of love. I was also not at all comfortable as I was renting at an old apartment where my room was so extremely hot, that three fans, two of which I purchased in desperation and turned on at the same time, did nothing to alleviate the situation and I would often cry my eyes out, due to sheer frustration because it was so incredibly hot and I couldn’t seem to find any available apartment that was within my price range and within safe walking distance to the route where maxi taxis gathered to collect passengers.

In all of that, this is what I wrote:

• ME: Lord, many preachers are saying that Christians ought not to suffer, ought not to get sick, ought not to be oppressed in this life. What do you have to say?

• JESUS: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me ” (Luke 9:23).

• ME: But Lord, how then will we make it, if a life of following you means we must sometimes bear burdens and sorrows and heartaches and hardships and griefs? And what do we do during those periods when you choose (in your wisdom) to remain silent to our seemingly endless prayers?

• JESUS: …”I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee…And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever…Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you….Ye are of God…and have overcome them because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world…” (Hebrews 13:5; John 14:16-17; 1 John 4:4)

• ME: I think I finally get it Father. As much as I hate to suffer, to truly demonstrate that we now identify with you, Jesus, we must of necessity go through sufferings even as you went through sufferings while here on earth. And as 2 Corinthians 4:8 – 10 says, as Christians:
  
  “We are troubled on every side, YET NOT DISTRESSED; we are perplexed, BUT NOT IN DESPAIR; Persecuted, BUT NOT FORSAKEN; cast down, BUT NOT DESTROYED; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”

(Written 13th December, 2010)

Dear Reader, if you found this Note to be interesting, edifying or beneficial, I recommend that you also read the following:

• Note 2 – ‘The Fivefold Purpose of Suffering’
• Note 25 – ‘Arm Yourself – Suffering Is Part Of The Christian’s Story’
• Note 30 – ‘The Price Tag Of Success’