Pain is weakness leaving the body - Part 2

In January 2010 I wrote about this topic. Well, sorta.

Today, two years later, I find myself saying this phrase pretty often. This is because of the realization that has occurred surrounding this key concept in walking with Father.

If you look back over your life, and the lives of anyone to whom you consider yourself in a close relationship it doesn't take long to realize that when it comes to "life lessons" (more than this is how you open a pull tab on a can type stuff) we seldom, if ever, learn those without pain being involved.

I was watching a story on one of the local news stations the other day about a boy who had recently died of cancer. The story was showing some previous interviews with him and some interviews with others who's lives he had touched. I immediately noticed something about him. In fact I noticed it about him and a friend of his about the same age going through similar life and death battles. In fact, several of the other newscasters who had met both the young men noticed and commented about it as well. They had an incredible maturity about them.

Reflecting back, I believe this is something I've seen in every person walking difficult paths who I've encountered in person or through reading, hearing, or seeing their stories. They have an unusual strength about them.

Even in families who walk difficult paths with loved ones, this strength seems evident.

Perhaps this is what James had in mind when he began his letter with:

Consider it pure joy brothers when you face difficulties of all kinds.

James probably had seen it and understood. The pain we endure is not without purpose (or I should say purposes as Father is always at work not only in us, but all around us as well -- that's a future post I'm going to call "Intersections" I believe). As I reflect back over the years of my life, I can't say I've experienced the pain that others like these boys have experienced, but I can say that through every cycle of pain to strength, the only true casualty has been weakness (usually in the form of unbelief or lack of trust) in my own life.

Not alone out here in the uttermost parts...

One of the interesting parts of my journey has been the initial isolation you feel when you begin the trek down a different path. The further I go down the path the more I come across others who are on the similar journeys. Today I discovered the blog of Jim Palmer. Just reading his current post, "you can't get there from here (or can you)", I found myself excited. One of the sentences that got me really excited was this one:

i don’t feel the need to cling to the label “Christian,” and i am okay with people who don’t think i am one.

I too have gone through a period where I was not quite sure what I had become and didn't know how to answer the question "are you a Christian"? I can say that the only folks I've come across who question my relationship to God are those who are typical church goers. Especially those with whom we attended church or served on their church staff at some point. Most think we've had some deep hurt from the church and have turned our backs on it. We get that blank look that comes after you tell them and it's obvious they are hoping we'll get over it at some point and return. But when you've had steak you can't settle for SPAM any longer when you don't have to.

On the other hand, when we come across unbelievers or others going down this same path we are on, we don't get those questions or the stares. And oddly enough, the unbelievers just notice something "different" about us and because we're not all "churchy" they actually open up and pour out their souls to us. The opposite of the reactions we used to get, and never noticed before because we were too church-strung, of the blank stare and obviously trying to think of an answer that allows them to slip away from the encounter never to have to see us again.

So, as Jim I don't cling to, and actually shy away from, the term "Christian" these days because of the association that it conjures in the mind of others. I've landed on the term Christ Follower. It's much more descriptive of where I am and where I am headed.