Please Lord, No More

Please Lord, No More

Any time I am feeling down, I pull out my journal and reflect on some of my better times. This time I came across a scripture I previously found important to write down: Psalm 119:71, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (NIV).

Long pause.....

When looking for something uplifting, this most certainly isn’t what I would be looking for. When going through the most difficult times, it is hard, no, almost impossible to come to a mental place to say it is good to be going through it. Most times we want someone, something to rescue us.

It’s even more disconcerting when something happens that seems unjust: a car accident, being laid off, an illness, anything that shifts your life in an unexpected direction.

How can it be good to be afflicted?

I have heard many people who consider themselves atheists say, “If there is a God, why would He allow suffering?” Lord knows I would love to have a clear, cookie-cutter answer to this question. However, in my 35, almost 36, years of life, I have learned these things:

• Suffering has caused me to self-evaluate.
• Hard times made me choose between crawling underneath my covers and refusing to face life, or finding the strength to overcome.
• After seeing others suffer, I was strengthened by their story.
• After I have suffered, others were strengthened by my story.

I have absolutely said in the midst of difficulty, “Please Lord, no more!” It sometimes felt like things couldn’t get any worse, but did. I would imagine that in the spiritual realm my spiritual frame must have muscles cut like a massive body builder. I could not imagine one more thing happening that would require me to have faith to get through. Each circumstance required me to trust that everything would work out without having a clue how that would happen.

But ultimately, your pain has purpose. (I winced as I typed that). It is not easy to tell a person who is being afflicted by hardship that their pain has purpose. But it does. One guarantee in life is that there are no true guarantees. Death, illness, foreclosure, eviction looms at everyone’s door, no matter how secure or healthy things seem to be. However, our faith must tell us that no matter what comes, God’s love was present before the pain, will be there during the pain, and will be there forevermore. Even our foolish mistakes serve a greater purpose! It is difficult to understand how an affliction could be good during the trial, and sometimes we don’t fully understand its purpose after the trial. What is most important is that you rely on your faith in God’s word to see you through.

Allow your faith to turn, “Please Lord, no more” into, “Please Lord, no more….but I trust that you love me, and there is a greater purpose in this that I am unable to see. Thy will be done.”

Peace.

If you have any comments, questions, or prayer requests, please contact me at: faithfrfr2014@gmail.com. Also,you can go to my website SherondaLBarksdale.com.  Follow me on Facebook at Sheronda L. Barksdale, Entrepreneur and Life Empowerment Coach, Instagram at: sheronda_l_barksdale, and Twitter at: @SherondaGB.