It’s not about me has so clearly been the lesson God has been teaching me. He has showed many so many different ways I make it about myself that I never would have realized on my own. One of those ways is in suffering.
In the "Church" I have heard about suffering. Though some churches neglect to even mention it, most do. Have you ever noticed, though, how we always talk about it in relation to ourselves? Many times we say as the one suffering, “God is trying to teach me something.” Fair enough. I can think of many times I have suffered because God wanted to teach me a lesson and I was being hard-headed and would learn it no other way. I can even think of a couple of times when I was not trying to be hard-headed, but still God in all his wisdom knew I had to suffer in order to learn this or that lesson.
But, what if some we are suffering for someone else? What if it has nothing at all to do with us? And what if the suffering is a silent one? A suffering that most would never guess you were going through, nor understand? Could even that suffering be for someone else? Ephesians 3:13 " I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory."
I think that the answer is yes. We are all apart of the same body and thus interconnected. This of course, is not easy. Who wants to suffer for others? ...Not me, I am not that selfless. It’s one thing to suffer so that I can learn and grow; it’s another to suffer for someone else to learn and grow. Of course, I want to be obedient to Christ and I accept whatever he may give to me, but this does not necessarily mean I receive it all with joy. The joy comes when I remember that Jesus did not suffer for himself, but for the sake of others, others like, me.