Oswald says (2):

The Holy Suffering of the Saint

    "Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good..."— 1 Peter 4:19

Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God's will— even if it means you will suffer— is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God's will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. And no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint's life. 

The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. But the people use to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us their sympathy because sympathy only serves to weaken us. No one better understands a saint than the saint who is as close and as intimate with Jesus as possible. If we accept the sympathy  of another saint, our spontaneous feeling is, :God is dealing too harshly with me and making my life too difficult." That is why Jesus said that self-pity was of the evil (see Matthew 16:21-23). We must be merciful to God's reputation. it is easy for us to tarnish God's character because He never argues back; He never tries to defend or vindicate Himself. Beware of thinking that Jesus needed sympathy during His life on earth. He refused the sympathy of people because in His great wisdom He knew that no one of earth understood His purpose (see Matthew 16:23). He accepted only the sympathy of His Father and the angels (see Luke 15:10). 

Look at God's incredible waste of His saints, according to the world's judgment. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say, "God intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him." Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be. 

http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php

Brought to you by the letter "G"

WHY DOES GOD ALWAYS GET LEFT OUT OF THE CONVERSATION?

I mean honestly. I've noticed it more and more. Whenever I bring up the "G word" conversation dies. Even with my "Christian" friends! Or there's a topic change. Or an awkward pause, a slight address, and then we're moving on. It's so frustrating! 

"Hey"

How are you?

"Well I'm struggling with [blank]..."

Oh, well [tons of advice]. Anything else?

"Sort of. I'm also struggling with God."

[Silence. Then...] So what else is new? 

"Dude, what's up? I haven't talked to you in so long!"

Hey! Yeah, I've been around [blah blah].

"Cool. What have you been up to?"

Eh, not much, you?

"This and that, it's been interesting. What's been on your mind?"

Well I've been doing a lot of thinking...

"About what?"

College and stuff...

"Oh yeah! [blah blah blah]"

And God. Aren't you Catholic?

[Silence. Then...] "Uh, yeah... so do you want to go shopping tomorrow?" 

This is aggravating. God, how long have I ignored you when others brought you up in conversation? How many times have I done the exact same thing? Forgive me, Father! Let me always be eager to speak of you and discuss your character with others! Lord, it is irksome that as I grow with you I can't talk to even my good friends about it. Am I doing it wrong? Or is this just part of the process? 

Hill Country

This is so much harder than I anticipated. Shame on me. 

So God, I just want to clear up some things with you. You see, I've never been to the hill country before. This is new terrain for me. I mean, I've been living on the beach my whole life, and I thought that life would be easy with you. Sure, some days it rained, and sometimes my house got a little bit flooded out, but I was so used to sunny and 75. Everyone around me agreed with me. They told me that the walk wouldn't be easy, but it seemed pretty easy to me. And it didn't look difficult for them either. So we were all together, on the beach, telling each other it would be hard to walk but never actually walking. We thought we were walking, but we weren't. We were just talking about it. 

Then one day you sent me a letter inviting me to stay with you for a while in the hill country. At first I was confused, because I thought you lived on the beach. When I showed the letter to some of my neighbors, they sort of hemmed and hawed about it and shrugged it off. So I packed up and left. My neighbors, I think they thought I was sort of weird to leave the beach. But I wanted to see if you really did live in the hill country. 

It took me a while to get started. The road was uneven and unpaved. I had to pass some friends as I left, and it was awkward. I didn't want to leave them. I wanted them with me, but I couldn't force them to come with me, because they were happy at the beach. Maybe you sent them letters, too, telling them to stay there. I don't know. I still don't want them behind. But I don't know what you're doing with them, and I can't question you. So I keep walking. 

Now that I'm walking, it gets harder and harder. I've started to reach some of the foothills and I'm stumbling a little. It's weird out here, and disillusioning. I have to look twice at my surroundings because it's all unfamiliar to me. Every time I look back I trip over something in front of me on the road. And as I look ahead I see these terribly looming mountains. They scare me. Do you live in them? On top of them? This is so different from the beach. On the beach it was all flat land and I could see clearly all around me for miles. But now there are so many obstacles and my vision is limited. Sometimes I'll see other people traveling, and sometimes I'm even lucky enough to have some conversation with them, but they're on their own journey, and I'm on mine, and I understand that. 

Something I'm grappling with is the difficulty and humility this journey to your house requires. The concept that you want me to struggle is foreign to me. Having some one tell you that you are going to suffer for Christ is very different than actually suffering. It's like someone describing light to someone who has lived in the dark their whole life. It's not something you can describe; what would you say? Or trying to describe red to someone who is color blind. How would you do it? It's impossible to understand until you experience it. 

Yet perhaps, in that case, we suffer so that we may know You. How can we know You until we suffer like you? But at the same time, I look at people who have disorders, like my dad, or anorexia, or mental disabilities, or who are emotionally or physically abused, and I want to turn into a mass of tears and ask you "How can you let this person go through this? How is this helping? What happened to your compassion?"  I am unworthy to ask these questions, I know. Maybe if I had real faith I wouldn't ask. Maybe if I weren't so weak I could trust you more. I don't know anymore. I just keep walking and stretching my legs. I can tell I'm not in shape because it burns. Maybe I never was in shape. "No pain, no gain", right? Well, I'm exercising now, aren't I?

God, why do I keep failing people? And why have you made me so that I always take the fall for others? Why is it wrong to ask why? Why does it signify a lack of faith? Why am I ALWAYS wrong? Why do I always take the blame, and why does it feel sort of satisfying? 

"I need you like a hurricane

Thunder crashing wind and rain

To tear these walls down

I'm only yours now

I need you like a burning flame

A wildfire untamed

To burn these walls down

I'm only yours now

I'm only yours now."

   --"Hurricane" Jimmy Needham

(Please, don't leave thoughtless comments. Pray first.)