The New Testament always talks about 'death.' It's so morbid!

Is it a dry spell, a desert, leanness of soul, or is God far away? I find myself instinctively gravitating to food, when I know down inside that it is a hunger of the soul. But it runs so deep and wide that I just can't find any way to fill it. Often I just find myself falling down at the foot of His throne... sobbing inside, but too cold outside to shed a tear.
If only I could, I would find relief, I think. I'm not all that spiritual, but I've been so worn out by sin and the world, that I'm only a cinder, or a reamed out hollow cistern - a cavern that reaches to the centre of the earth. It's dark... cold... and silent.
Where is the warmth, the burning heat of God's Spirit? Where are the lost days of intimacy we once had, when I discovered in Him, both a Father, and a Beloved? He was everything then, everything I ever needed or could want.
The Christian life is supposed to get deeper, fuller, and more powerful, not like this; not all carved out and hollow. Long prayers... and the hunger still consumes me from within.
Oh when will he return? Then I will be filled with a great explosion of transcendence! Then my tortured, sin-wrecked soul may find rest, and peace. It's all I want. Can anyone relate?

It has become a sort of haven - this place where the door is always open, and people populate. the same names; the same contentions, the same sweetness, the same arguments. But this is the ark; and whether it stinks of dung, or is pleasant with rain, it is the haven of the saved, the called out, the possession of God, a peculiar people. I have dreams of christians some times - of faces and names i've never met, and churches that don't exist. I always wake with such happy feelings, wishing they were real, that they were here. It is like heaven... and then I wake... alone.
How I love the people of God, those in whom His lovable Spirit dwells and lives and loves. I can't explain this feeling. I get so high. I can't believe that I once was the enemy to Christians - and now I ARE one! No one could believe.... I couldn't believe. 'Behold your calling, brethren...' Why did God choose me? And he knew all my future sins before i knew them; knew me in a way I could never know myself. Yet he chose me. He included me among all this beautiful, lovable, worthy, good people. Everyone is so much better than I. Better than I could ever be, even with His Spirit working in me. I am so unyielded still. I think the worst of my sins, the base of my sins, was that I just never took the mandates seriously. He never demanded. He just softly urged me with an impression on my heart - a burden, a grief. When I was tempted to sin in those first holy days, it was a song that gently played in my head, shutting out everything - 'Yield...not to tempta...tion, for...yielding is sin. Each....vict'ry will help...you some...other to win.'
It may have been the Holy Spirit's way of speaking, through songs i knew, and verses I'd memorized... but I came to harden my heart, even through tears. How I wish I could go back to those days when the Spirit was so intimate. So many hours I sat alone in an empty church, writing out my prayers, which were nothing more than child-like conversations with this divine entity that I addressed as 'Grampa'. All my friends, all my paramours, all my plans and ambitions, I forsook for the simple pursuit of merely spending all my time with Him, and no one else. Oh, how I was full to the brim and overflowing. Even older believers couldn't understand why I spoke the way I did. I guess time can make even saints a little disillusioned over time. It's a war, a battle against cleverly placed demons shrouded in invisibility and wielding unearthly, angelic power. So we are often wounded, often defeated... We bring shame on the Name... the precious name.
But one day when 'Time will be no more' God will make all things new; and he says that in that day, from then on, 'The former things will have passed away, neither will they come to mind.' Oh what a promise, what a blessing!!!! So many things of this world, this age, my life span do I wish to 'never come to mind' again. Then I won't have to wake up every morning so weighted down with bitter recollections, and stay awake at night condemning myself over and over and over for my failure to God, man, the world, and my own visions and desires of my own. God will wipe away all tears with His own hands. The Judge becomes the compassion and merciful Father of the Prodigals, and the savior of the Thieves on crosses of shame and remorse. Along with the worthy sheep of whom I am not worthy, I will be shepherded to pastures where only sweet, loving words are spoken day after day after day, and nothing bad or reproachful.
We'll forget some day, I pray, that we were once sinners in need of the blood of the Son of God being spilt for us. But we'll understand forever that it was not by our own doing, but his election that we are there. Redemption's song will never cease to echo melodiously across the fields and valleys of our sabbath rest. Angel's wings will become a familiar thing, while we learn every name by heart, and keep company with them as naturally as with our earthly friends.
How I long to have Babylon removed from my sight with all her carnal advertisements. She has often trapped me in her Vanity Fare, alluring me with her temporal illusions, from the path of Jesus' calling. But now she is gone, and her worldview by which she deceived us. The brilliant glory of the ever present throne of God will replace her harlotries. The glow of that Holiness will keep us captivated for age without end. At least the Wizard of Oz writer seemed to envision such a thing, and yet his vision pales to the daily reality that shall be ours. No sun, but light; no sea, but a river of life; no death, but all the dead in Christ joined as if they never slept, never groaned, never wept, never died.
Then will words like peace, joy, love, rest, will come into the fullness of their transcendent value, that our sinful mortality here would not allow our hearts and minds to afford.
Come, Lord Jesus. Come for the sake of all the suffering saints; the martyrs, the prisoners, the tortured, homeless, sick, bereaved, lonely, orphaned, indigent, and otherwise miserable. Forgive us our sins, be they all so deep. Only you can. Only you can wash us. Who is a God like you, who pardons, and who delights in mercy - DELIGHTS in it! We are nowhere near so merciful or forgiving. Please teach us in these moments that remain, to be merciful, kind, generous, sacrificial, and brave; and long-suffering and forbearing with each other. Teach us the virtues of heaven. The angels are watching. The great cloud of witnesses are cheering us to the goal they themselves have attained. Help us war the good warfare and overcome, and to agonize the good and worthy agony. Help us to finish well, and with few regrets. Heal us of so many, many hurts - for what we've done to others, and what has been done to us. Heal us so we can minister healing to others who come. Come... come to Jesus - the Great Healer, Teacher, Friend, and Lord. Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come.

I'll just keep writing, for that is one thing my Father taught me to do. This country boy who couldn't even talk english awhile ago, can express his feelings... and grampa died before he got a chance to see, and a chance to guide his little shadow through the craggy shores of life, to emerge such a good man as he.
But here, I can reflect on the journey. I know my path has been so, so far more twisted and dark and confusing than others. So many obstacles that others haven't known, thank God; and so many tools lacking for the war against life. God help the child who has no tools. Survival devices and foolish choices make the journey to a whole disciple quite dismal and long. To just become a whole person, a normal person, someone recognizable as a person, a human, a member of the race, the culture - fit for... something of worth...
Seems like everyone got a head start and a hand up. Life can be mercilessly unfair and cruel. But this is in the sovereign design. Nothing has escaped God's knowledge while constructing the path to loving him and fulfilling our call and ministry. Wounded souls become porcupines, but grow gradually into wise comforters and supporters one day, hopefully. Still, I would totally trade my life (God forbid); that is to say, I would without hesitation cast it away, with what little redeemable elements it has, to have never known the hard way, the grievous errors, the unforgivable mis-steps, the lessons learned thereby. I envy those who have come by sheltered and nurtured paths. i envy those who have never known the deep secrets of Satan, and had their souls so stained that even the blood of Christ cannot remove the memory of the foul transgressions that made them.
Here, I have but one desire and expectation. It is for only me. Having seen how vicious brethren can relate to each other over simple differences of views (as if anyone deliberately sought to believe something that wasn't correct or true), and having written things that I later regretted, and often used too many words to say quite little, and often unnecessary, I wish to learn the art of grace.
I want to hone my ability to be concise and thoughtful, sympathetic, and diplomatic, positive even when making a negative point, and edifying of all I correspond with. I want to hone these skills, because I have never really had them. I want my heart to be shaped and guided by the heart of Christ within me, saying only what he puts there. So speak through me, Lord. I care not that anyone hears, but that I ever speak rightly through you.

CarolLoves said:

Note: I am part of a person diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder). I will mostly post because I am the part responsible for holding christian beliefs, but others may post on occasion.

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I once was possessed... literally, but only physically. I was a christian at the time, although I believe it was something that was with me all my life - this demon. It first manifested to me when i was four, a year after my mother died.
I have an aboriginal bloodline, and the primary tribe of my descent -Cree- is known to have many demonic issues as I had. I did a lot of research when I went through my struggle, to understand demonology, and what we call psychological disorders, including dissociative.
It forced me to take a fresh look at the bible, from beginning to end, especially with Jesus and the apostles, because everyone argued that I could not be demonized as a christian. They didn't have any scripture to argue, just the commonly held philosophy that 'if the spirit of God fills you, there is no room for a demon.'
They seem to think that Satan cannot bear to share space with God - like a vampire can't bear the sight of a cross. How silly. Scripture shows that demons come and go from the presence of God all the time. Satan appears before him to accuse the brethren. Satan appeared along with the angels (sons of God) in Job. It isn't like they are repulsed by the Holiness of God. It is the torment of Jesus that Legion feared - the abyss.
As christians of this age we have a very poor knowledge of spiritual matters, and thus are ill equipped to deal with them as we are called to do. Believers fear Satan, and yet we are called to be the only ones in the universe who can defeat him by the power of the blood of Christ, and His Name, which is our authority.
We have adopted the belief system of psychologists, whose world view is anti-spiritual, or in fact pagan, or even paranormal. I have found in my long mental history, that most counselors are nothing but wounded and ill people themselves, who entered the discipline, not for vocational reasons, but to heal themselves, and then others out of sympathy.
I even had medical doctor tell me that she considered psychiatry first, but found the doctors to be crazy themselves, so she opted for biological medicine.
Is it possible that the other personalities you share might be nothing more than spirits in disguise; a thing they love to do, taking up residence in a place that won't be adverse to them?
Consider the people who were in the temple when Jesus walked in. They were there to worship along with the rest, and yet at the presence of Christ, some of them suddenly fell down before him, speaking in alien voices, professing to know him, and exposing themselves for who they really were - personalities who had been hiding in and sharing the consciousness of these every day religious people. No one, not even the host, knew that they were there.
All my life I had been plagued with sleep paralysis, demonic nightmares, things being moved or hidden, waking at exactly midnight for no reason, depression, oppression, and many defects of character and psyche that I couldn't get over. As a christian, these things didn't stop. I still got sleep paralysis, but instinctively I sensed that it was something evil - a presence, and entity, and I began to resist by saying that I am a son of God. It worked for the most part, but the entity never left.
I experienced joy like I'd never known at first, but a dark cloud used to fall over me without warning, and this worsened as issues came up between myself and other believers. I allowed sin to creep back in, and the temptations were overwhelming. Once I allowed sin to take hold (because I had not been taught that we are dead in Christ to our old natures and identities, and are set free from the old man of sin, so we can choose to obey and nothing can stop us), then guilt added to the oppression, and a cycle was born.
No one knew of the demonic stronghold in my consciousness that bound me in so many ways that I couldn't fight back like others. At the same time I was trying to work out the unresolved psychological issues as well as to understand society, having been orphaned and mistreated, alienated from normal culture and family.
The demons had given me a distorted view of reality, and my weakness was that I 'identified' with their voice, because it sounded like my own thoughts. However, being a new creation in Christ, possessed by the Spirit of God, the natural thoughts I should have produced would have reflected the truths of scripture and the Spirit, not the lowly, self debasing, condemning thoughts that I agreed with. Nor should I have been convinced that I didn't have the power to resist sin, since it is not a matter of power, but of nature. Water will naturally follow the course of the channel carved out before it. It does not need to will, but to know its natural path, its identity.
While my eyes saw the truths of Christ about my new creation, who only needed to be transformed in thought and mind, my heart identified with the demonic lie that I was still the old man - a sinner, who was merely reformed, not reborn. In fact it would be many years later when one day I saw the words of Jesus in John 3:3, to Nicodemus; 'Unless you be born from above (of the Spirit of God), you cannot see the kingdom of heaven.' Since then this is my only approach of witnessing to people. But it was only a small piece of the puzzle, and I had much more to learn. It is the starting point, but I had to both learn, and to unlearn. At well times, I spent my prayer time renouncing things I believed, that conflicted with the word of God, no matter how I strongly I held them with my emotions.
Every time I did this, I literally felt a heaviness lift from me, just like when I was first saved. The more heaviness lifted, the more of the fruit of joy filled me. The more joy I felt, the more powerful in the Spirit of God I was to witness for Him. I was released, and the cloud of oppressiveness receded.
The problem is that I have to fight vigilantly to maintain this. The devil has filled this world with illusions that look and feel real. The flesh corresponds to these things. They appeal to it because the flesh is not of heaven, while in our spirits our citizenship is in heaven. This is the 'being transformed in the spirit of our minds' process - replacing one perceived reality with another, along with the world view and philosophy that accompanies it. The flesh, the natural man, is indoctrinated by the 'god of this world.' He has designed this carnal wonderland to keep them under his sway. He is Morpheus, the lord of dreams and the dream world where they are kept in the bondage of sleep.
But every time I encounter these lies and illusions, the only way to transform my mind is to resist the devil's lie, and take it captive to the truth of Christ, thus submitting to God's world view.
This is the path I have taken, and I still am susceptible, but I know the rules, if I stay on top of them. What does the bible say about that? is my motto. I know what psychologists say, but they are of the world, and the world hears them. But God was familiar with this whole issue of demons, as well as mental illness, from the beginning of man. There has to be a place in the body of Christ where the apostles addressed this. How did Christ address it? The term lunatic is used interchangeably with demonized, or 'had a demon.' Some of us (statistically about 25%) are cursed (and blessed) with a spiritual susceptibility that makes us more sensitive and vulnerable to invasions from the other realm. The line of demarcation is blurred at all times. Then sin tears down the wall, giving them permission. Identifying with their lies keeps them there, and intoxicants are an open portal.
The little boy who was 'taken' by a demon and cast in water and fire often, according to his father's lament, had been that way since a little boy - just like me. I hear preachers say that there must have been something evil in the father's life to invite it in, but this is their cop-out, since they are afraid to believe that there are innocents who through no fault of anyone are targeted by demons who attach themselves to them early, when they are most vulnerable. They stand in their rooms, or hide under their beds, gazing at them, seeing their spiritual make-up as clearly and well defined as a doctor looking at an x-ray of his patient. That is how I first saw the demon in my room looking at me, silently, as still as stone, with no apparent intention to do other than that... but then it all began. He was sizing me up, I guess, and nowadays he is not so subtle, unless I am sinning. That is when he is quiet, because he does not want his presence to scare me back into the arms of Jesus, and out of sin.
Well, I pray you don't take offense at my personal belief about dissociative disorder. I did a lot of searches on the internet about it and the approach doctors took, and it is amazing how they almost openly say it is demon possession. I heard and read case files from around the world, and the explanations just made no sense outside the context of the biblical view - that these people indeed had living entities within their minds, occupying their consciousnesses, and plaguing them because there was no Jesus to set them free.
Ultimately, whether it indeed be some sort of vague, incurable medical disorder, or indeed spirits who need to be taken captive to Christ and resisted, it is something that must be addressed within the realm of our faith. These are not the kind of things that God would allow in his flock. It is negative and inhibits our ability to minister and glorify God, so it is clearly of the devil. It is like king Saul, being taken by an evil spirit to oppress him, but the music of the godly David set him free.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. It has been decades since my 'panic attacks' and visions. I still have a hard time reading the scripture without 'interference', but I listen to audio all day, and my early years have supplied me with much memorized verse to draw from. I did have an encounter months ago while sleeping, when I was touched by an invisible finger, and then my cover was pulled off my shoulder, but I simply pulled it back up and said, 'If you're going this far, I must be doing something right', turned over and went back to sleep, rejoicing in the truth and faith that set me free of Satan's dominion.
Don't get me wrong. My life is still a wreck. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing the things I have, but I have learned much good that helped me and others since. Now back to the wreck. In abounding Christ love, your brother for eternity.

Day and night blend into one. Time stands still like a stagnant pond, green with algae and slime. Time is thick. Time is sludge. How I wish that Jesus would dawn. I wish that he would break in upon my stagnation.
No more ministry - only memories. Memories haunt. Memories deceive. I was never as good as I perceived myself to be... not even close. Memories return to condemn me of all the people I hurt without realizing it, when I was not so well as today, not so wise (at least, more wise than then), and of all the people whose needs I neglected. Why was I so selfish? Have I changed? Now the opportunities to bless and benefit them are gone. You only get that one chance when it comes... and then it's gone - forever.
Shoulda' dones, and coulda' dones, echo down the corridors of time behind me. All around me they deflect off the walls of the past, and reverberate down through the future. When will I be permitted to escape these bitter memories? Why did earth have to be this way? What do you plan to prove, oh Lord, when it's all over, and the order of things is changed forever?
What was it all about? I dare not question you. I know you're ways and thoughts are infinitely transcendent to mine, but as a mortal caught up in this - drama of history, just a speck, just a fleeting flake of snow in the sun, I lament my estate. There's nothing I can do. I'm cursed. I'm sentenced to waiting for you to move again.
Will it be pleasant? Will it be evil? Will I finally shed tears? Will I flee in fear? Will I go mad? I cannot imagine that anything favorable can come to me in this late hour of life, and of the world. Let me see the light of your countenance somehow at last. How I miss you. How I miss the glory of your love, your presence, your voice.
The days of glory are gone with youth. Just a faded garment remains, tattered and weak, worn with age, torn and bruised from all the follies, lessons I wish I'd never had to learn.
Oh to put off this flesh, with all the memories I want to forget, the regrets I cannot undo. Heal me, oh my Messiah, my personal Savior, my Sovereign Lord. Come to me. Heal me. Heal those I failed. Heal the past as only you can. I don't seek glory anymore; just peace, peace with you. Return to me. Return lest I perish in spirit. Come again, Lord, as you promised. Hurry. Hurry, for the world is dying. Come... Hurry... Return.

I don't know if saying anything more than 'thank you' will be productive. I guess I just want to assure you that I'm not living in sin.
I am alone though, but not at all because I choose to be. I want to remind you, unless you have never heard or seen. that there are times in many, many saint's lives that he takes them a different course from that common image of fellowship and ministry and all.
Remember that in North Korea, christians don't go to church on Sunday. They don't sing, read the bible, or talk to other believers about their faith. The most fellowship you might get, is to sit beside a known believer on a public bench, and just 'know' that you are related in the spirit.
Sometimes, like Martin Luther, even though he was called to a great work of God, he was shut up in a lonely room, trapped with the oppressive spirits who came to deter him from the duty God had given him. In Israel and Jerusalem, (today this also applies), it was a danger to speak of the Name, or to stand for His commands, because the environment was against Him.
Times and places, and circumstances are not always favorable to the kind of ecclesiastical life that we take for granted in this country, and we frown on those who have been cast in to 'uncommon' circumstances for their refinement and faith. I won't go into detail more than that. It wouldn't make any difference if I did. We all have one Lord, and one destination, but the paths that God leads us are as different as our personalities and languages and genes. God has kept me off balance all my life, so that I would never expect things to be a certain way, but be ready to change directions when he does. His ways are mysterious, and so is my life. I know that He is completely able to remove me from this 'rut' as you call it, but quite often (especially outside of our nice little democratic bubble) God grows us within the rut. He does not deliver us from the fire, but goes with us through it. We may spend the night with lions, but he will be in the midst with us till the morning.
Till then, as J Vernon McGee always said, 'When God sends you through tribulation, he means for you to tribulate!'
So I am tribulating. God bless you for your support. How blessed that your own path is now beneficial to minister to your brother this way. I will keep all you have said and use it. Thanks again.

Well, bro, although I am the first to agree that God put us in a body to bless and depend on each other; I am certain that it wasn't his will for this to be the answer to all our problems. No, I'm not in N. Korea, but believe me, life has more than enough ways and circumstances to put you in to be able to identify with others.
I used to be in a ministry to refugees. We'd get together to pray, with languages from different nations being translated and cross translated. These people had known what it was to be beaten, tortured, their homes stolen and burned, and life in refugee camps where many of their family was still.
I asked them all to share what their individual country was, and a little of their experiences. I wanted to feel it, to enter in to it, to be connected with it. We are connected in one body.
After we got to the last person, one of the girls turned to me and said (translated), 'What country are you from?' I almost laughed. 'No, I'm from America. How funny that you thought I was a refugee too!' I guess they questioned why I would be among them instead of the regular congregation. But I've always been an odd duck.
So after they spoke of their families still in the camps, they asked about mine, at which point I had to admit that I never had a family. I never knew parents, and I don't have siblings. It's just me, I said.
There was a long silence, and it was obvious that these suffering people felt embarrassed by me, because even though they had gone through so much, not one of them knew what it was to be an orphan. And here I was, born and raised in their host country, and yet in a way worse off than they - in that sense. You just can't know the pain, the loneliness, the queerness, and the defective development that accompanies such a fate unless you experience it for yourself.
I just say all this so you hopefully will understand that there really are things that can happen even in this prosperous and democratic utopia we live in. Now I haven't told you my circumstances still; and I won't, but I hope that this will serve to broaden your imagination a bit.
Job, remember, was not persecuted in a prison camp either, but he fell into the most extraordinary scenario, because to his ignorance, he was the victim of an uncommon demonic attack from the very prince of devils. Don't think he was the last person for this to happen to. Don't limit your mind to only one way of seeing things. Please don't be a typical American, with a narrow view that no one can break through to find empathy, the way Job was unable to find comfort from his consolers.
You say that God does not afflict. But my bible says very differently. He says that he both wounds and binds up. He says that he disciplines those he loves for the sake of growing them in righteousness and holiness. James even says that he who endures tribulation is blessed, and that he should rejoice for it, knowing that it increases his christian virtue. Romans 5 says the same thing; that we glory in tribulation, knowing... Jesus, according to Hebrews, 'learned obedience through what he suffered.' The Father, it says, made the captain of our salvation perfect through suffering.
Suffering is our friend. Pain can never defeat the child of Him in whose world it is permitted to exist. It can only become a tool to shape them, as it has the saints throughout history. It matters not that its author is Satan. All things serve the Creator of all things.
The saint who cannot endure suffering, but who counts it as a bad thing, can never reach the maturity that it along creates. Americans always want things to be pleasant, but that is not the Christianity that Jesus promised. That kind of life produces weak and frightened soldiers, unseasoned, and easily shocked by unexpected pain and the furnace of our proving. Have you never read how the epistles of Paul, or the Pilgrim's Progress of John Bunyan came out of prison cells?
Have you not read how the isolation of Martin Luther produced such works that forged the reformation? Nothing good or worthy ever came out of ease and pleasantness... ever!
David became such an incredible bible author and king because he went through such unbearable and unusual suffering, and even when he had friends, they almost stoned him, but he encouraged himself in his God, and that is who I turn to, whether alone or in the midst of others. If you cannot learn to walk alone with God, then you will never be able to draw on the Supernatural power that only God provides, not men, not even brethren. This is the lesson I have learned. It is reflected in the words of the Psalms. Read it for yourself if you don't believe me. Look at Psalm 22, for example. I am nothing unusual in the history of sainthood. America is! I am not an American. I'm a Christian, a citizen of heaven, a soldier in enemy territory, on foreign soil.
I appreciate your attempts to comfort me. I really do. I thank you for your support, but I have at least crossed that level of already. I don't look for things to always be good, but for God to work all things together for good according to His purpose and glory.
This is my furnace. I will come forth as gold.

I'm a little confused. On one hand you include the scriptures that only commend suffering, but on the other hand you seem to reject the benefit that the scripture assures comes through suffering. You seem to think that suffering for our own choices is the only kind of suffering a christian may have, and that suffering for our own choices is not still God's tool to bring forth good fruit.
All the sons of God must endure chastening, or else they are bastards and not sons. Whether it be out of bad choices, or just the sovereign pruning of God, the purpose is still the same. No character comes from just a happy, pleasant life, where everything goes your way. Nothing in the whole realm of existence is gained that way. It's against the laws of physics, nature, and the spirit. Pain brings gain, and that is why we rejoice in our suffering - not because it is pleasant, but because we know that it is being used of God for a desired end.
You say to focus on the outcome, but I think it is wiser to focus on the present lesson, or else we me find ourselves wandering through the same wilderness again, because rather than learning, we were just seeking to be delivered from it.
You keep saying (if it is God's will) but he says that it is ALWAYS his will. That is how we grow. Paul reiterated this over and over again. Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God. Let us go to Christ without the camp, suffering his reproach. Agonize the good agony. Take up your cross daily. Anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ WILL suffer persecution.


As for the importance of dependence on others for your spiritual life; there comes a time, and there are many places now and historically, where people do not have that luxury. Does God not have a plan for that? Can he not sustain us alone? Do you bring others into your prayer closet?

There is a devil in the world, and his agenda is to keep us from glorifying and serving God, from submitting to his hand and loving him through all circumstances. That is why he tested Job. If you do not go through suffering, it is only because you have ceased to be a threat to the Devil. We are soldiers on a battle field. Battlefields are not pleasant places with easy chairs, popcorn and movies. They are bloody places where we must keep vigilant, because our adversary prowls like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Those who seek comfortable lives will not resist him. They will always compromise for the sake of ease.
Jesus said to count the cost, but your brand of discipleship seems to have no cost. Paul says that we mourn, yet rejoice. It is a paradoxical walk that the world finds alien. Are you a warrior? Or is this a spiritual DisneyLand to you?

But it doesn't matter what I say. I don't have to defend a believer's call to the cross. As you say, if it is God's will. The day is coming in this country when that kind of commitment will be outlawed, just as it is in the rest of the world. I won't argue these matters with you anymore. I know that God has called me to suffer. It has been His Sovereign way with me since before I was born, just as it was for David, or Paul, or countless of his saints.
It does me no good to hear the words of someone who believes in a cost-less, cross-less christianity when God does not afford me that life. I finally trust God with my life, whether in pain or in comfort. But without the pain, I never would have learned this level of trust.

I will no longer defend, anymore than Job could defend his position. God vindicated him in the end, and I trust him to be my vindication also.

I think we're almost on the same page.
You focus on the relief; and it's true that I do defend the suffering. Call it wallowing if you will. You know why, brother?
Because as long as we are in this world, the flesh is going to contend with our spirit, and there is only one way for the flesh to be put to death, and that is suffering.
That is why even Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered, not through his deliverance from it.
I am thankful to God for my suffering. Do I enjoy it? No. That's impossible. It's miserable, and it's not even in God's original design. However, my joy in suffering is that I realize that I'm being shaped by it, and through the pain, I grow broken, and that makes me pray more. I grow more needy and dependent, and that makes me pray more.
When I pray more, I am being more intimate with God than I ever did when things were comfortable. I weep. In fact I have lost the ability to weep (except at movies, ironically), but I weep to God. When I am strong, I am independent. I walk by sight, not faith.
I never learned to trust God until I went through such prolonged and revisited suffering that he left me no choice but to trust.
I don't know where you get your perception that everyone gets delivered from suffering either. Usually saints suffer till they die, once it's begun. I never want to live a life without suffering, for so many reasons. Suffering is my teacher, my wisdom, my friend, not to be avoided.
Suffering keeps my feet on track. It makes my skin leathery against the attacks of Satan. It takes me to a place where fear is gone; and where the comforts of this world are no longer needed or missed.
Suffering makes me remember who I am, and that there are my people, my brethren in the world who are going through worse tribulation than I. It gives me the capacity for compassion and unselfishness.
I'm sorry that you don't understand that, because these and other reasons are the very cause for which our wise God allows suffering in the world of His sheep.
You will never know God the way a person who suffers knows him. That is an indisputable fact.
I don't want a shallow Christianity. I've known enough of that. I want to lose my life so I can gain it. I want to know Christ, and the fellowship of His suffering, filling up in my flesh what is lacking of his suffering, and becoming conformed to him in his death, so that by some means I may attain to His resurrection.
These momentary light afflictions are earning for us a greater weight of glory that far outweighs them all. If we suffer with him, then we shall rule with him.
Suffering is not my will because it is pleasant, but because it is his will, and his wisdom. He takes the unreasonable things of man, and glorifies himself with them. When my flesh dies, my spirit lives.
I want to be strong. I don't want anyone to ever say, 'Oh, you don't have any idea what I've gone through.'
I feel the world's heartbeat, it's blood, it's agony and anguish. Before I suffered all I cared about was myself and what I wanted. I used phrases like 'my life' and 'I don't like'. But I learned to use language like 'Praise you anyway, Lord', and 'Not my will, but Thine be done.'
I feel like a fool defending wisdom that the righteous have taught and known since time time without beginning. If I were in any place but the 'American bubble' of freedom and seduction, I wouldn't even be having this conversation, because they would all know exactly what I mean.
But just wait... You'll find out just like I did.

So the norm for christians is to be happy? Suffering is only for seasons?
You truly are an American. You think that suffering does not attract people to Christ?
Why are there literally millions being saved in persecuted countries, and so few attracted to the 'happy' churches in America? They just see us as hypocrites.
The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the saints, remarked a Roman Emperor.
What you just cannot see is that the norm is suffering, because in our suffering, and only in our brokenness, as Paul said, is the the power of Christ perfected. I just don't know what bible you are reading. The New Testament believers, starting with Christ, literally defined their lives by suffering. Peter said that we are for a season (our earthly lives) grieved through trials, which have come to test, to prove our faith to make sure that it is genuine. If we can maintain our faith through suffering - especially persecution - then this is commendable.
If a man suffer for righteousness, this is commendable. I just don't know where you get your theology! You live in Disney land.
We are indeed to rejoice always, but that rejoicing is not divorced from suffering. Paul wrote these words from a prison cell!
Suffering to you is some anomaly that interrupts our walk, but the scripture says that it is through suffering that we are to serve, because it is in our dying, our weakness, our brokenness, that His power is enabled.
The world is not impressed by those who can laugh when the sun is shining, but those who, like Paul, may preach in 'fear and trembling' having just been scourged and beaten. You have a 'because of' faith that will not endure when the Devil stops being so friendly. But Jesus called us to an 'in spite of' faith. God does not want to deliver us from the furnace. The furnace is meant to be the very place where we minister.
But I know my words are wasted. I only say them because I hope that one day you will see real christianity, not the American dream dressed up and labelled as Christian. Then you might remember the scripture I use, not the doctrines of men. One day I pray that you will cease to interpret singing and happiness when all is comfortable and peaceful in this world as being filled with the spirit. Take up your cross, I pray.

7... a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be made haughty. 8 For this thing I besought the Lord three times, that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may overshadow me. 10 Therefore I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am powerful.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10.

7... a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be made haughty. 8 For this thing I besought the Lord three times, that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may overshadow me. 10 Therefore I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am powerful.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10.