Free Through Suffering - Liberated for Greatness!

Free Through Suffering

"Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress" (Ps. 4:1).

This is one of the grandest testimonies ever given by man to the moral government of God. It is not a man's thanksgiving that he has been set free from suffering. It is a thanksgiving that he has been set free through suffering: "Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress." He declares the sorrows of life to have been themselves the source of life's enlargement.

And have not you and I a thousand times felt this to be true? It is written of Joseph in the dungeon that "the iron entered into his soul." We all feel that what Joseph needed  for his soul was just the iron. He had seen only the glitter of the gold. He had been rejoicing in youthful dreams; and dreaming hardens the heart. He who sheds tears over a romance will not be most apt to help reality; real sorrow will be too unpoetic for him. We need the iron to enlarge our nature. The gold is but a vision; the iron is an experience. The chain which unites me to humanity must be an iron chain. That touch of nature which makes the world akin is not joy, but sorrow; gold is partial, but iron is universal.

My soul, if thou wouldst be enlarged into human sympathy, thou must be narrowed into limits of human suffering. Joseph's dungeon is the road to Joseph's throne. Thou canst not lift the iron load of thy brother if the iron hath not entered into thee. It is thy limit that is thine enlargement. It is the shadows of thy life that are the real fulfillment of thy dreams of glory. Murmur not at the shadows; they are better revelations than thy dreams. Say not that the shades of the prison-house have fettered thee; thy fetters are wings--wings of flight into the bosom of humanity. The door of thy prison-house is a door into the heart of the universe. God has enlarged thee by the binding of sorrow's chain. --George Matheson

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If Joseph had not been Egypt's prisoner, he had never been Egypt's governor. The iron chain about his feet ushered in the golden chain about his neck.--Selected

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Traveling through times of difficultly is never easy and when it seems that the difficulty is on the track of perpetual confusion and disarray, it's all the more perplexing. I know the feeling of disappointment and loneliness; I know the darkness associated with the uncertainty of tomorrow. I know what it feels like to feel  that you are walking on the edge of a breakthrough, while at the same time, feeling like you are standing on the edge of collapse.

When I write or speak, I do not do it from what seminary has taught me, or what I've heard in lectures. When come to you, it is from a place of experience; a place that has taught me that God does his best work in the dark pits of suffering. Oh, how desperately we struggle to get out of the pit. With great intensity, we pray for immediate extraction from our struggles. With unparalleled passion, we cry out for deliverance. Deliverance will, come, but God is saying that you need the iron of suffering to enter into your soul. The visions and dreams given to your heart by God is tempered and settled by the long winds of suffering.

The vision gives you hope for the future while the suffering prepares you for it. As I spoke with a powerful man of God just on yesterday, he told me not to allow the struggles of today to harden my heart or make me bitter, because its God's way of preparing for the next level of ministry. He confirmed all that God has revealed to me years ago and reminded me of Joseph. He told me that the vision was true and real.

I am telling you now. The dream and the vision that God has given you is real. Remember, Paul said, "I consider that the current sufferings are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us (Rom. 8:18)." God does not allow suffering to destroy, but to develop. When you cry out to God to remove you from your struggles, he replies, "No, but I will bring you through it." The message that He is sending is that He is more concerned about your character than He is your comfort.




This is a moment in which patience must have its perfect work. God will come through!  ~ Dr. Rick Wallace