Abandonment And Suffering - Chapter 7

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"Experiencing The Depths of Jesus Christ" by Madame Jeanne Guyon
I would like to continue speaking to you about abandonment, but in this chapter let us see how much consecration affects you when suffering comes into your life.

You must be patient in all the suffering that God sends you. If your love for the Lord is pure, you will love Him as much on Calvary as on Mount Tabor. The Lord Jesus loved His father on Mount Tabor where He was transfigured, but He loved Him no less on Calvary where He was crucified. Surely, then you should love the Lord as much on Calvary, for it was there that He made the greatest display of His love.

There is a possibility that you might make a mistake concerning your abandonment to the Lord. You may abandon yourself to the Lord hoping and expecting always to be caressed and loved and spiritually blessed by Him. You who have given yourself to the Lord during some pleasant season, please take note of this: If you gave yourself to Him to be blesses and to be loved, you cannot suddenly turn around and take back life at another season…when you are being crucified!

Nor will you find any comfort from man when you have been put on the cross. Any comfort that comes to you when you are knowing the cross, comes to you from the Lord.

You must learn to love the cross. He who does not love the cross, does not love the things of God. (Matthew 16:23) It is impossible for you to truly love the Lord without loving the cross. The believer who loves the cross finds that even the bitterest things that come his way are sweet. The Scripture says, “To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” (Proverbs 27:7)

How much do you desire to hunger after God? You will hunger after God and find Him, in the same proportion that you hunger after the cross.

Here is a true spiritual principle that the Lord will not deny: God gives us the cross, and then the cross gives us God.

As you can see, now we have moved outside the realm of a certain period of time set aside for prayer; we have now moved into a realm that involves the whole experience of the believer. Let it be said here and now: You may be certain there will come to you an inward spiritual advancement when there is also in your life a real progress in knowing the experience of the cross. Abandonment to Christ and the experience of the cross go hand in hand.

Then how will you treat suffering? Or, to put it another way, how will you respond to the Lord’s working the cross into your life?

You may respond this way. As soon as anything comes to you in the form of suffering, at that very moment a natural resistance will well somewhere inside you. When that moment comes, immediately resign yourself to God. Accept the matter. In that moment give yourself up to Him as a sacrifice. By doing this, you will eventually make a wonderful discovery. It is this: When the cross does arrive in your life, it will not be nearly as burdensome as you first feared. Received it as from God, no matter what it is. The burden is far lighter this way.

Why is the cross so much lighter when accepted this way? Because you will have desired the cross, and you will have accustomed yourself to receive everything from the hand of the Lord.

Do not misunderstand these words. I have not described to you a way to get out of the cross. Even though you utterly abandon yourself to the Lord and completely resign yourself to suffering, this will not prevent you from feeling the weight of that cross. If you have not felt the cross, then you have not suffered. Feeling the pain of suffering is one of the principle parts of suffering. Pain is an inescapable aspect of the cross. Without it, there has been no cross at all. Suffering is woven into the nature of the cross. Pain is at the center of knowing suffering. Please remember that your Lord chose to endure the most extreme violence the cross could offer.

Sometimes you may bear the cross in weakness; at other times you may bear the cross in strength. But whether you bear it in weakness or in strength, bear it!
Both the weakness and strength should be the same to us since we bear the cross in the will of God.



Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ by Madame Jeanne Guyon
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