Dalaina May's Blog: Jungle Reflections - Posts Tagged "suffering"

“Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

It is one of the paradoxes of God---life from death. The one who loses his life will find it. Our very salvation is because of death giving way to resurrection life. Yet, even God does not delight in death. Death is unnatural to the kingdom of God and the very last battle He will fight on our behalf.

The agony of death, though, is real. Sitting in the middle of the excruciating pain that comes from a fallen world’s piercing reality, from injustices so devastating that they threaten to undo us, how is it even possible to see anything but the black sheen of death? When is the color of life coming?

Oh Beloved, it comes! Long after the grave seems sealed shut and forgotten, the power that brought our Christ rushing back to save us breathes new life in us. It is not the life that we remembered for we are forever changed by the scars that we bear. But it is life. It is a life re-birthed in growing confidence that our security is not in what God does, but in who He is. He is a God that hates yet allows death. He is a God who invites us to participate in His suffering. He is a God not content to leave us clinging to our own visions of how things should be, but stretches open our cramped fingers to take our dreams and replace them with His purposes. He lays down His life and invites us to lay ours down as well so that we may live.