Part One: What Can We Learn About Suffering from Jesus?

Jesus Carries Our PainSuffering happens to all of us.  Our God has a special path for each of us as we go through the unique suffering with which He has gifted us.Permit me to be bold and offer some ideas that have helped me deal with my seasons of suffering.1.  Don’t fight against the feeling of suffering.  It is part of your journey on this earth. Suffering has an important purpose: to stir up within you a need for God.  Declare that your suffering is the seedling of joy.  (James 1:2)2.  What causes suffering to one person is different from the next.  For one it may be emotional pain, for another physical pain, for another spiritual pain, or all woven together.  Regardless, the experience we have in common is that of pain.3.  The SOLUTION to our pain in suffering is this verse:Your hope of Glory is Christ in you.(Col. 1:27)When you are struggling with your pain, embrace this fact:Jesus is in you and for you, managing your pain.How?  Jesus, the Suffering Servant, carries (nasa) our pain:   What does this look like? To have Jesus “carry” (nasa) our suffering?To illustrate, please consider the word nasa (adapted from the Hebrew) in Isaiah 53:4.Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering.   (NIV) —  Jesus will pack your suffering into trunks, lash them to camels and lead them away.—   Like a pregnant woman carrying her babe in her womb, Jesus will be pregnant with your living pain.  He will do the labor and delivery on your behalf.—   He will lift up (nasa) your veil of incomprehension and unbelief, just like the Beloved’s veil was removed. (Song. 5:7) so you can see the big picture.—   Jesus will embrace your pain like a young lamb and carry it close to his heart, so you are not alone.(Josh.1:5)—   Jesus will raise (nasa) his voice to join in your lament  (Lam. 2:19) and worship with you, fixing his eyes on the Almighty  (Heb. 12:2). In Christ,