Tug of War, Numbers, and Days with out Incident Counters.

“Your church is really into the numbers aren't they?”

This statement was made by a good friend of mine, who has the common problem a lot of people tend to have, she lacks a filter. She wasn't trying to sound judgmental, or rude, even though she did. To give her some credit, I don’t even think she realized it sounded rude until the end of our conversation.

To go back to what sparked that comment, I simply just told her that it was a good Sunday at our church, we had 10 people publicly give their life to Christ, about 5 others that made the same decision, but chose not to come up front. I told her that I had about 6 visitors come to get coffee from me, and 2 people asked me about baptism.

Note to self: Apparently when people ask “How’s church going?” it’s the Christian equivalent to “What‘s up” and your supposed to respond with something as surface level as possible.  

“Hmm, I guess so!”  I wasn't trying to avoid the conversation. Really I wasn't, I simply was hoping she would hear the “I-just-want-to-get-my-pumpkin-spice-latte-with-out-any-offenses-caused” tone in my voice. Alas, no such luck. Apparently filter malfunctions also come with a glitch in the “tone-reader.” Good to know.

“Why is that?”

My hopes for an offense free Starbucks run was quickly squashed with that question. I guess I could have given some simple hard-to-argue with answer like “I don’t know, just is”. But I could tell that this was more than small talk, she was genuinely curious about why I would spend any energy counting visitor cards and bodies.

“It's pretty simple, we count people because people count”- (Not to put words in His mouth, but that had to be The Lord- I am not that smooth)

“Oh I just don’t really see it in scripture or anything, but I guess everyone has their own convictions right?”

Now, here is where you should be proud of me. I desperately wanted to ask her if she’s even read scripture when it hasn't been spoon fed to her from the pulpit. But I mustered up enough grace to leave that little comment out. Oh wait, I guess that would be Jesus too huh? Either way, I was able to quote several places where Jesus was in fact concerned with numbers.

I’ll save the dialogue, but basically reminded her of several times in the book of Acts where they counted how many were added to the number daily. Also, the story of the fish and the bread isn't called “Jesus fed a random large group” it’s titled (if your bible does that) Jesus feeds 5,000. Meaning, he knew there were 5,000.

I could probably ask Siri for a dozen more examples, but that’s all I was able to recall in the Starbucks waiting line.

Here’s the thing, I don’t really care if your church cares about numbers or not. I know I do, and I know newLife does- beyond that I really don't care. I wasn't irritated that she was challenging my church’s number philosophy. I didn't even care that she was challenging my own philosophy. I was bothered that it even mattered.

So many times, the conversations I have with other believers feels like an endless, childish game of tug of war. So many times the goal of the game isn't to simply stand still- it’s to gain ground. 

Every single time I have these conversations, it’s only after the rope breaks and we’re both flat on our butt that I can see the rope burns on my own hands. Our stupid flesh wants to constantly battle, our pride wants to know that we‘re right The flesh constantly is saying "Prove them wrong. Have a back bone!" While the spirit says “Be still. Be patient. Have some self-control.” 

I’m speaking to myself here, so often I want to prove my point, be heard, be understood, gain some freakin’ ground. But ask me how many times conversations like this end with me feeling like I've accomplished something? How many times has someone actually seen my point? Understood where I was coming from? How many times can I say God was glorified by our tugging? Um, none. Nope. Not even once. 

It’s not these pointless disagreements that bring believers closer together. It’s the times that I've sat down, guard down, heart opened, and really listened. It’s the conversations that didn't start with an offense, or a challenge, but instead started when someone showed a piece of themselves. A piece that they knew I could use against them, but they trusted me not to. The conversations where the sole purpose, is to edify, encourage, strengthen, grow. Can these conversations sting? You bet! Not nearly as bad as a rope burn though.

So why in the world do I constantly find myself in the other? Why do I even bother with the unnecessary? I have no idea. Because it wasn't until I left the coffee shop, and was half way home before I regretted picking up that rope again. In the aftermath, it’s easy to see how silly it is to be defensive, it’s easy to see how ugly my heart was. Even though God gave me the grace to not verbalize my ugliness, doesn't mean it wasn't still there. 

God’s word makes it pretty clear, several times over, that He does not want us to play tug-of-war… 

Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry -James 1:19

Better is a person with patience than a warrior. One with self control than one who takes a city. Proverbs 16:32

Do you see someone who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for them. Proverbs 29:20 

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification, do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. Romans 14:19-20 

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Romans 12:16

So this is what I will aim for. To live at peace as long as it depends on me, to be patient, and slow to speak, to seek mutual edification. I won’t tear down the work of God for the sake of food, or numbers or anything else for that matter. If I fail,  when I fail, I will simply rest in the fact that his mercy is new every single morning. With that in mind, when another tug of war conversation creeps up, and I fall short once again, I will simply do as the Hulk would do and reset my “Days with out incident” counter back to 1 and start from scratch.

You might be a whore if.....

I know, it’s not nice to call people whores. Sorry bout that.

But have you ever read the book of Hosea? If you haven’t, I suggest you do. If you have, you’ve probably noticed what I noticed, that it kinda calls us all whores. Don’t believe me? Check it out

Hosea 1:2-3
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim and she conceived and bore him a son.

Next they have some kids and give them some rather unfortunate names and then,

The LORD said to me, Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley and I said to her “you must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore or belong to another man; so will I also be to you”- Hosea 3:1-3

Apparently romance and sweet talking wasn’t Hosea’s strong suit.

But more so than Hosea’s lack of swag, this is a beautiful symbol of the greatest of all unlikely marriages. Jesus and His Bride, the Church. 

Correct me if I'm wrong but if Hosea and Gomer are supposed to be a picture of Jesus and the church. Doesn’t that mean that we are playing the whore in the story?

If your offended by that then I’m guessing you don’t really know the definition of a whore. 

Whore (n): Person who is promiscuous; who pursues fulfillment from multiple sources.

See you might be sitting there like I was when I read this story justifying why that isn’t you. You don’t worship other gods. That’d be ridiculous. You know that Buddha & Allah are not actually God. For goodness’ sake you’re a Christian!

But just because you don’t spend time worshiping a well known god, doesn’t mean you don’t spend time worshiping your own gods. 

I know calling you a whore and an idol worshiper isn’t the best way to make friends. So I included a list of small gods of my own. While I can relate to these personally I think they are idols that tempt all Christians. 

1. Being Christian
That’s right. We’ve made an idol out of religion. We listen to our Christian radio, while wearing our Christian T-Shirts, driving our Christian car that has the Christian bumper sticker on it, going to our Christian pot-luck, to hang out with our Christian friends, thinking our Christian thoughts, drinking our Christian latte, Speaking our Christian-ese into our Christian Smart Phone…you get the picture. We’re more in pursuit of a label than a relationship. 

2. Being Good
Is it just me or does the term “Good Moral Christian” bother anyone else? We have consumed ourselves with being good, doing good, saying good, thinking good, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Except when it’s all about us and our ability and our control. See morality says “Now that you’ve found Jesus, kindly step into this very neat, clean box”. But here’s the problem, nothing about the Christian faith is perfectly neat and clean cut. My Christian walk isn’t going to look like your Christian walk. Because everyone has their own messes to clean up. Morality presents the idea of conformity. Because it focus’s on our man made standard over His divine example.

3. Knowledge
Scripture is great isn’t it? It’s one of the many tools God gave us so that we could be intimate with him. I don’t know about you but I’m really glad we have scripture. I had this teacher in Bible college who I absolutely adored. Her first assignment was for us to describe what our Christian walk would look like if suddenly all the bibles in the entire world disappeared. The point was to help us realize that while head knowledge is great, it can’t compete with Heart knowledge. But so many Christians search the scriptures religiously to simply know more. Not understand more. They want to religiously study all scripture just to say that they have studied all scripture. To sound holier. To look more Christian. To have better “tweets”. Whatever it is, they don’t have the right heart attitude. I definitely believe that we gain heart knowledge by reading what God’s word says. But if we are selfishly reading God’s word to just know more, and not sharing more or doing more or praying more, then we’ve severely missed the point.

4. Ministry.
I’m so stinkin’ guilty of this one. I easily grade how Saved I am by how good whatever ministry I am doing is going. Of course there’s no “Check Points for Ministerial Success” worksheet in the bible so I just have to judge it up against my man made list of what success should look like. You know like, how much recognition I’m getting for it, how many people vocalize how much they appreciate my hard work, and how many times I do little things that get noticed. Does it sound super sinful yet? Cause it is. It easily becomes more about work and less about faith. There are sometimes that I get it right, and then I get super encouraged because I know that it’s not me who did that. Because if people are getting reached and Jesus is being shared then that’s gotta be Him, I’m not that smart. I’m actually dumb enough to try and work out of an empty useless cup rather than take a day off to go to the Source that can refill that cup. Because that’s just our stupid human fleshy logic. And unfortunately it makes us whores. Bummer.


So while calling someone a whore isn’t exactly the best way to promote a blog. It’s the best picture of our dirty, gross, human state that I can think of. 

Here’s the part of Hosea that really gets me. We’re taught by scripture that adultery is a “biblical ground” for divorce. We almost have come to expect it in Christian marriage. If one person commits adultery, then we comfort the other by telling them they have biblical grounds to forsake that vow. It’s totally true, according to Matthew 5:32 they do. But here’s something I think we forget to realize when throwing around that scripture, Jesus is supposed to be our perfect example for everything in this life. We are His bride (Ephesians 5:25) and we have committed adultery against Him, in the sense of idol worship. Yet, never once has Jesus thought about divorce. No, instead He has the complete opposite response to our unfaithfulness…

And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. I will abolish the bow, the sword and war from the land and I will make you lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord. Hosea 2:18-20


So let’s stop whorin' around. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I tried, really I did.) But seriously, let’s stop giving our money, and our attention, and our energy, and our praise to things that in the eternal scheme of things really don’t matter. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want it to be said of me that I have “Forgotten my first Love”.

Surrendering Sucks.

One gives freely, yet grows all the richer, 

another withholds what he should have given and 

only suffers want.

 Proverbs 11:24

Ever have a conversation with someone and nothing gets accomplished aside from feeling frustrated and exhausted? I know I certainly have. You can feel so defeated, like you just wasted so much precious time and breath. You walk away shaking your head, wishing you didn’t even open your mouth. Especially if the person you’re trying to talk to is as stubborn as me. 

This is exactly how I imagined God felt after sharing with me his 31 little pieces of “wisdom”.  Frustrated, exhausted and frankly, sorry He ever brought it up.

(Luckily God is way more gracious than my little human brain gives Him credit for.) 

Though none of it was exactly news to me. I’ve read these 31 books before. Except normally my sole purpose is to simply find a clever one liner that‘s tweet worthy. Other times it’s only to find the perfectly worded little saying, short and sweet enough to paint on a piece of wood. But as of late I’m trying to read through these catchy snippets of wisdom from a different perspective. As I do this I’m beginning to see that it’s not quite as cute and clever as I once thought. Not only that but it kind of thinks I’m a fool. A big fat stinky one, with a gold ring in my nose to be exact.

To top it off, it has to go and make things personal.

You see there’s this thing that I’ve kind of been holding on to. Okay, really holding on to. It’s as if I can see God holding out his hand for it and instead of just handing it over to Him, I slowly hide it behind my back, tighten my awkward grip, and walk backwards shaking my head. 

Did you just imagine a two year old with an illicit candy bar tucked into it‘s tiny fist? Because that’s kind of how I feel.

Now if I was reading these cleverly crafted words with my old perspective, I would have simply gotten out the checkbook, filled in the blanks, and checked it off my imaginary “Not a fool” list. But unfortunately taking this new approach to the scripture means I can’t just stop at the superficial.

Maybe Solomon was in fact just talking about money and gifts in this little aphorism. Maybe I’m reading way too much into it. 

Or could it be that the riches he’s talking about is the treasures we find when we completely surrender all of ourselves to Him, letting His plan for our life take precedence? Perhaps the wealth He’s referring to comes from the Peace that surpasses our understanding as we watch God take our small things and turn them into Kingdom things. Maybe it’s referring to the rich trophy of him saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant”. Maybe, just maybe, He just wants to be My reward.

So surrendering will always suck, but I'll wave that silly little white flag as many times as I have to if it means He gets the Glory. 

(Just in case I didn't get the picture the first time, this nice little song also decided to play first on my playlist)

Go and Sin no more.... or Not.

When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman where she was in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you? She said, “No one Lord” And Jesus said “I do not condemn you either. Go, and sin no more”- John 8:9-11

How’s that going for you? That whole “Go and sin no more” thing?

Cause for me, it’s not really going so good.

I still curse others with one breath and then praise God with the next. I still rebel against authority. I still talk a big game about reaching the lost, then go back to my safe little walls. I still complain about things God’s blessed me with. I still think others have it better. I still am way quicker to speak than I am to listen. I still eat food when I’m not hungry and buy clothes I don’t need. I still fall short. I still keep others at an arms length. I still doubt God’s goodness, and I still question His grace. I still demand to see the wounds in his hands before taking Him at His word. I gently step over the scattered stones laid down, forgiven and free. I go, but I don’t exactly “sin no more”.

Let’s go back a couple verses

“Teacher” they said to Him, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman, so what do You say?” They asked this to trap him, in order that they might accuse him.- John 8:4-6

It’s easy to turn up my nose at these puritans, with their stones raised to this poor girl. I'd personally like to think that I’d have more grace and compassion than them. It’s easy to think I’d be standing behind Jesus as he drew in the sand. Arms crossed and hackles raised. Angered by their injustice and overwhelmed by their hardened hearts. As much as we love to criticize their motives, we also love to forget that they were simply doing the biblical thing.

“If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife- with the wife of his neighbor- both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death”- Leviticus 20:10

It’s really quite foolish of me to think that I’d have any more grace. I’m just as legalistic as them. I’m just better at hiding my stones. I can sit here and turn my nose up at their purity etiquette and moral codes all day long, but really they aren’t any different than the long list of “holiness rules & regulation” we’ve instilled in our own little world. Sure the Pharisees had rules about what they could and couldn’t wear, how they should wash their hands, when they should wash their hands, what they could and couldn’t eat, who they could and couldn’t touch. But we do the same thing when we assign a label to the girl who just walked in our church wearing too short of a skirt. We do the same thing when we place conditions on God’s grace, and rules on his mercy. We do the same exact thing when we claim to love Him, but then ignore His people. We’ve even made up our own codes for how to handle sin we’ve deemed more severe than our own. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know who’s worse; the Pharisee’s or the modern day Christian.

I can’t wait to get to heaven and ask Jesus what he drew in the sand that day.  I wonder if it was a list of the Pharisees sins, or maybe a cool “one-liner” about how the law was given through Moses, but Grace came through the carpenter.


“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her”

I wish I hated my own sins as much as I hate everybody else’s.

At first my theological ego was rubbed a little wrong when I read this verse "Go and Sin no more" Surely he didn't actually mean that. Surely He had to know that all he was doing was just setting the poor girl up for failure. But regardless of what I or any of my alter-ego's would like to believe, Jesus does in fact call us to be perfect. In Matthew 5:48 He says "Be perfect, therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect" So he really does want us to Go and Sin no more. But just because He calls us to it, doesn't mean we will disappoint Him when we fall short because we will indeed fall short.

I think my biggest issue with this story is the point of view from which we retell it from. We don’t tell it as the Pharisee’s would. We don’t tell it like the sinner who saw redemption first hand would. No. Out of all the people in this story, we’ve decided we’re most like Jesus. 

We’re not taking this story and celebrating our redemption. 

We’re not taking this story and second guessing our harsh verdicts.

All we’ve done is turn this story into a stone.

I think it’s a little obvious that we’ve completely missed the point.

All Things Considered

So before hitting the Blogosphere I kept a bunch of writings on an old computer. I thought it would be kind of fun to go back and post one of those old writings. It was probably a good idea in theory (I do have a lot of those) but then I came across a common problem as I was reading through them. I didn’t really agree with anything that I said in them. It didn’t even sound like something I’d say or think. 

This year has been a crazy year, we’ve changed churches, changed jobs, changed apartments, changed ministry goals, changed life goals, ultimately we’ve just changed. So naturally my writings and ideas have also changed. So I deleted all the old writings that I no longer agreed with. As I sat there deleting article after article I couldn’t help but think if in another year from now I’d be logging onto this Blog and deleting the posts on here I no longer agree with.

Then last night we had a great conversation with an amazing couple and we just were able to talk about life and ministry and all the things in between, and as we talked I was reminded of one of my favorite stories in the bible. It’s only recently became my favorite because I’ve noticed something about it that I’ve never quite caught before.

Acts 18:24-28
Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos. A native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man with a thorough knowledge of the scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquilla heard him, they invited him to their home and explained the way of God more adequately. When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. On arriving he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

So it says that Apollos only preached what he knew, until Priscilla and Aquilla came to him and explained the way of God more adequately. But check out what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say that Priscilla and Aquilla then go on to call him a false teacher, or publicly humiliate him in front of those he just preached to. It also never says that Apollos was embarrassed, or hung his head in shame, or went back and retracted what he said when he preached. He had no reason to, because he didn’t mislead anyone, he didn’t twist scripture. He didn’t do anything wrong, he just simply had limited knowledge. 

I like this passage a lot because it reminds me that it as long as I’m doing my part and telling you what I know about scripture, and doing it with reverence to Him, I have no reason to go back and delete or edit what I’ve said. Something in the conversation with this couple really stuck out to me, we were talking about teaching the Word and that we can’t control how others take what we said. That not everyone is going to agree and most importantly that not everyone is going to hear what we‘re trying to get across. Our only responsibility is to rightly divide the word, teach the context accurately and give true application. Past that I can’t control what you take from it.

I think Apollos and his friends had it figured out. So I’ll keep writing even though some of you, maybe even myself given enough time, might disagree. You might even take what I say out of context and twist it. But that’s okay, I still won’t go back and delete any posts. See here’s the thing, I don’t write to impress you. I don’t do it so that you’ll compliment me. I don’t care about that. I care about encouraging others with my limited knowledge. So I‘ll do just that. But I won’t spoon feed you anything. Because for one, I am not your Mama, and 2. Chances are good if I do I’ll have to go back and make you regurgitate all the misguided crap I fed you, and trust me that won’t be fun for either of us. So I’ll do my part and make sure I am rightly presenting the Word, you do your part and read the scripture for yourself.

Like I said, the Christian life is a process, but I think we can make it easier on ourselves if we just agree to be in it together. As brothers and sisters. Walk alongside each other as our finite brains try to understand an infinite God. As we go build each other up, and if one falls, be the first one to help him. Because you see, iron will indeed sharpen iron, if you let it.

Balance Beam

 For those of you who attend newLife I think this is a perfect example of what Pastor Andy was saying about what you do in this life dictates what your destiny will be like in the next. Check it out.

Pinterest and the Perfect Christian Life

So, I have a confession.

I love Pinterest. You're shocked, I can tell. But I do. I love thinking that one of these days I will have a spotless pottery barn inspired home filled with furniture that I built all by myself using only items found at the dollar tree, oh and pallets of course... can’t forget pallets! I get excited thinking of all the inches I’ll shred with every kale and spinach filled diet I find. I think it’s a ton of fun to count up all the dollars we’ll save when I finally learn how to coupon my way to a freezer full of a years worth of supper all from my one time $100 dollar run to Costco. Like I said, I love Pinterest.

But, as the story goes, every rose has it’s thorns.

As I sat there pinning my little heart out this morning, I slowly found myself going on a tiny little guilt trip.

I don’t have a pottery barn inspired- anything. I don’t eat and breathe kale. I've used coupons once, and I did it wrong and made the clerk lady regret not taking the job at staples. She said that. I mean she said it with her glare, but still said it none the less. Oh and those freezer meals and thrifty run to Costco? Sorry, my freezer is way too full of Eggo waffles and ice cream to fit any of your 200 calorie frozen masterpieces. I don’t have a Costco card but the one time I borrowed my friends and went by myself- I spent 150 dollars, and we still somehow didn't have any groceries. We had tons of chocolate covered acai berries, and a beautiful dog bed that Sophie refuses to even pretend to like. Maybe a couple other snacks were thrown in there I’m sure, but no actual, real food. Certainly no kale. 

Do you think I pinned or instagrammed any of that? Nope. Let’s be honest I move the pile of folded laundry out from under the dog before snapping a picture of her for my fellow instagramming friends.  And if there is a filter that makes my couch look cleaner, you bet I'll use it. Can you "facetune" your couch? If you can I'll be all over that.

We only instagram and pin our success, not our failures.

It doesn't bother me so much as far as the social media world goes. I don’t really care how clean your house is, what you had for dinner, or how perfect that one DIY project turned out. Pin away my friends. But more often than not it doesn't stop there. We bring this perfectly staged instagrammed self to Church. 

Stay with me, because I do it too. But what if, just one time- when someone asks us how our week went- instead of saying “Oh, it was so blessed” we said “I have a ton of garbage this week I tried to carry it out myself but it‘s too stinky, too messy and too gross. I have no clue how I’m going to get myself together, I need your help.” 

I know it seems scary. Because if you went to a church like the one I went to, they gave you a formula for your testimony. You told about the valley (your past), the climb, (when you trusted Jesus) and then described your mountain top. (the victory and delivery over your past). And that’s where it ended. It was a good formula and helped me get through the first time telling my testimony in front of people. 

But what if you’re a Christian, and you’re still in the valley?

Maybe not still in the valley, because let’s be honest your first experience with a Love that conquers all, or the first time you finally understood how scandalous Grace is; you were on the top of the Mountain and never thought you could come down.

But, you do. Life’s stinkin’ hard. Even the Christian life. Storms will come and the wind from them will more than likely knock you on your butt.

I think one of the most important lessons I've learned as a Christian is that there are things about the valley that He can't teach you from the mountain top. Follow Him there anyways, because He will never leave you in the valley. He just wants to show you something down there. It will help you appreciate the mountain, I promise.

Oh, but we have convinced ourselves that it’s better to just play church with each other, and go about the day like everything is hunky dory. No, being real is hard so lets just all put on our “we've got this mask”, and proceed to pin the perfect Christian life. Let’s forget about true, genuine relationships. Let’s forget about all the people who feel defeated and hopeless week after week watching your cookie cutter Christian life fall perfectly into place, and by all means let’s just fake it. Then go home and pray to God that some how, some day, we make it.

I‘m sorry, but I’m sick and tired of it. I’m done. I don’t want to play church. I don’t want one more person going home from church feeling less than, I don’t want one more person feeling like they should just give up because they’ll never be that cookie cutter Christian. I certainly don’t want anyone to leave the church because they just can’t keep up with the fake facades. 

I’m not going to present Jesus like he’s a box of chocolates wrapped with a perfect little bow. I’m going to share hope, but I’m also going to share struggle. There is hope and victory in this Christian walk, but there is also heartbreak, valleys, sin, and struggle. I think more people would be drawn to a Jesus who suffered for us than a Jesus who never knew struggle. The bible doesn't just tell the story of Jesus being born, his perfect life, and then skip right to the victory of him defeating death. No, it also includes the part where he was battered and bruised. It tells us he was vulnerable. It says He wept. So, from now on, that’s the example I’m going to follow. I hope you’ll join me. 

Romans 5:3-5
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Did you catch that? Suffering leads to hope. And hope will not put us to shame.