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February 17 - March 9, 2025
It’s deeper than that. We need help for our souls, especially when we are going through hardships.
There is no such thing as an unnecessary person.
We spend too much time concealing our neediness. We need to stop hiding. Being needy is our basic condition. There is no shame in it—it’s just the way it is. Understanding this, accepting it, and practicing it will make you a better helper.
When happy, we possess something we love; when anxious, something we love is at risk; when despondent, something we love has been lost; when angry, something we love is being stolen or kept from us.
We could sum up our emotions this way: they usually proceed from our hearts, are given shape by our bodies, reflect the quality of our relationships, bear the etchings of both the goodness and the meaninglessness of work, provide a peek into how we fare in spiritual battle, and identify what we really believe about God.
This is the essence of faith, and it compels our admiration. Anything we do because of Jesus—love, work, endure, hope—is very good.
Though we live before God, we are not always conscious of God.
There is the heart in action.
Who we love above all else is who we worship, and who we worship controls us.
Paul understands that the deepest need of our hearts is God—to know him accurately and follow him.
Our task is to hear God’s voice, believe his words, and follow Jesus even when life is hard.
If we remember the promises of God in our testing and turn to him, trouble can feel light and momentary (2 Cor. 4:17) when compared to the riches we have in him.
“If you think that news of my death will change my confidence in God’s love toward me, it won’t. His Son gave his life for me. Why would I think he would love me less now? He loved me yesterday when everything seemed to be going well. Nothing has changed—he loves me today too.”
Only people who know they have burdens can be delivered from them.
With no need for mercy, why bother sticking with Jesus?
Spiritual power feels like a struggle, or weakness, or neediness, or desperation.
When we have wronged others, we simply ask their forgiveness.
Bad behaviors, even those that are culturally acceptable, like a little grumbling, are expressions of our spiritual allegiances.
Our inclination is to live self-sufficient lives.
Psalm 46, for example, envisions the worst but doesn’t even ask for help. Instead, the psalmist knows that his greatest comfort lies in remembering who God is:
We need to do this, because if we jump right in to helping others without revealing our own neediness, we put humility at risk.
If we desire to be perceived as competent and in control, we will not ask for prayer. If we know that humans, by nature, are spiritually needy, and God’s plan is that we turn both to him and to other people for help, we will ask for prayer.
If you have prayed for someone, you know it is a privilege.
Say “thank you”—to God and to other people. The independent and self-sufficient never say this.
The kingdom of heaven is by no means quiet. When we have good news, it should be announced.
Good helpers, such as these friends: are present, which is a good thing when fears arise; listen, really listen; draw you out; avoid being impersonal teachers; never minimize, are never trite; remember.
God has determined that run-of-the-mill people do most of his work—not professionals, not experts.
As the King goes, so go his people. He moves toward people; we move toward people. He moves toward people who seek him and people who do not; we move toward those who want help and those who seem distant and marginalized.
The goal here is to keep our eyes open for good things in others. When we see good things, we savor them and point them out.
One privilege of a growing friendship is to hear our friend’s story. Scripture itself is the story of God, and we know him through that story. So it is no surprise that we learn about others through their stories.
When you follow what is important to someone, that path will take you to the primary struggles of life: suffering and sin. Suffering is the trouble that comes at us. Sin is the trouble that comes out of us.
silence is usually interpreted as indifference.
God’s premiere self-description is “the compassionate and gracious God” (Ex. 34:6 NIV). This means that both our pain and our prayers affect him, and he has us on his heart. He takes our burden on himself and remembers us. As we imitate our Father, we want to feel the burdens of others too.
Lewis when he writes that pain is God’s megaphone to arouse a deaf world. But
Meanwhile, the quest for answers is misguided from the start and will end badly. Suffering is not an intellectual matter that needs answers; it is highly personal: Can I trust him? Does he hear? Suffering is a relational matter, and it is a time to speak honestly to the Lord and remember that the fullest revelation he gives of himself is through Jesus Christ, the suffering servant.
These acts say to the sufferer, “I remember you”; “I think about you often”; “You are not forgotten”; “You are on my heart”; “I love you.” The
time we give to creative strategizing is the power behind such acts. It is unmistakable love that mimics the strategic planning of the triune God’s rescue mission. He planned and acted even before we knew our real needs.
Our endurance in hardships shows our solidarity with him.
we suffer, our hearts are exposed. We can see where we put our trust: in people, money, pleasure, and power—or in God.
A two-dimensional conversation—between you and another person—goes three-dimensional. We come alongside the sufferer and bring God and the suffering together.
We see that suffering is not the last word, but hope is. We see that God has purposes in hardships, and the grandest purpose is that we would trust him rather than be fair-weather friends who trust only when we have what we want.
Suffering hurts more, but sin is more serious. Suffering will not last, but sin has consequences that reach into eternity.
If we ignore our brothers’ and sisters’ sins, we have sinned against them, and we should ask their forgiveness.
Patience does not think, “If I were she, I would be working harder on this.”
Spiritual growth follows the pattern we see all around us. Growth is barely perceptible from day to day.
Ephesians 1:3–14 is a particularly rich way of telling it, and Paul’s excitement is such that the original passage is one long, breathless sentence. The flow of his thought goes from past, to present, to future.
Every retelling of the story, as it gathers more details of the blessings we have in Jesus, adds more weight to the master story.
Either way, Jesus is marginalized from daily life, and thankfulness is dependent on the events of the day rather than the unchanging blessings of God.
Whereas chronic suffering assumes that nothing will ever change, hope knows that our rescuer is committed to our good.
