Life on Life Support
Three things that might help the next time suffering hits
I had lunch with a guy the other day who I would consider a really good friend and someone I can count on. I’ve known him for several years, and he’s always been a man of faith and faithfulness, and eager to walk alongside other men as they try to do the same.
Throughout the conversation, I told him about the difficulty of the past year for my wife and me, but at the end, he said something that forced me to reflect.
He said, “Well, I’m sorry I didn’t know about it. I will be praying for you. I hope you had some people praying alongside you.”
When I told him I had a couple folks that I reached out to, he said: “Don’t forget about me!”
How can I forget about this dude? He’s rock solid and a man of consistent encouragement to me. Clearly, I forgot that he would be someone who could walk alongside me in a time of great need. Why did I forget about him?
As I reflected in the moment, I told him this: “Honestly, I think I was just in survival mode. I woke up every day trying to survive. I barely saw past what was right in front of me.”
What I want to tell you today is that you don’t have to suffer the way that I suffered. You don’t have to kick it into survival mode when life gets hard. Survival mode causes you to forget about God’s goodness. Survival mode causes you to forget about the community God has given you. Survival mode puts you on life support.
The problem is Jesus did not come to give us life on life support. He came to give us abundant life. This abundant life is a life that he experienced even though he suffered greatly—all the way to the Cross.
So here are three things you can do to help yourself have abundant life in the midst of suffering next time you may experience it.
Make a list of God’s promises in your phone and start memorizing them. Having God’s promises deep in your heart and mind will give you perspective when suffering hits.
Make a list of God’s people who you are confident will pray for you when life gets hard. Text those people every month and let them know how thankful you are for them. Pray for them often.
Keep in love with Jesus. We cannot draw near to Jesus without realizing He was a man of significant suffering. Yet He was also loved fully by the Father. We share with Him when we experience our own suffering.
You were made for more than life on life-support. The thing we can learn about Jesus and suffering is that flourishing and suffering can hold hands and work together. We often miss that because we take our eyes off the Lord, turn them onto ourselves, and put our hope in things simply getting better for us.
Jesus turned his eyes to heaven and finished his race. We’re instructed to do the same. And it’s in our looking to our future glory that we find our current joy and flourishing.
Have a great week,
Brandon Moore
