What are you suffering from
He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. Hebrews 5:8
I always thought that I could have had a better life if I had learned how to be obedient by listening and not by the mistakes I made. I thought that I had gone through a lot of needless suffering in my life, simply because of foolish mistakes and being deceived. However, the scripture for today inspires me because even Jesus learned obedience through His suffering. Granted, He didn’t suffer because of foolishness, but He did suffer even though He was fulfilling all that God had called Him too. This passage says He learned obedience through that suffering.
It is the same for each one of us. We are going to suffer in life. Whether self-inflicted (as much of mine was) or simply because life happens, either way, trials and suffering will come. The secret is to learn how to be obedient through the suffering and not become bitter or resentful. Jesus called out to His Father and asked for His suffering to be removed if there was any other way to complete the plan God had set up. Through His pleading and talking it out with God, He become obedient even to the suffering and death of the cross. Philippians 2:8 says that Jesus humbled Himself, that is how He was able to become obedient unto death on a cross.
Here is the key! Humility. If we will humble ourselves to learn from the sufferings we go through, we can come out of them in obedience and fulfill what our Heavenly Father has called us to. If we come out of struggles in pride blaming others or circumstances and determined to prove that we did the right thing, there is no obedience involved.
Today I want to encourage you in whatever you are struggling with, humble yourself before your Heavenly Father and talk it out with Him. Ask Him how this suffering can produce obedience in your life. It may not make sense and may not seem fair, but it wasn’t fair for Jesus either. Yet He became our ultimate example on how to both live and die. When we humble ourselves to the plan of God through the sufferings we go through, only then will we be empowered to be obedient to all His direction.
Today’s scripture reading: Hebrews 5:1-11
The Daily Dose 