Day Thirteen: Growing Uppity

Quiet Suffering

    “Are you able to drink the cup I drink or to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” I can hardly handle the suffering and the pain in my tiny little story on earth and I can not even conceive of the suffering and the pain Christ endured for me. However, we do have the advantage point that James and John did not. We know the cup that Jesus was to drink and the baptism he would be baptized with. They obviously had no idea for they answered him without hesitation, “We are able.”
     We were chosen to walk with Christ despite our ignorance and inability to share fully his pain and suffering for us. Though walking with Christ means we will endure suffering in his name, my desire is often selfish as I only desire to share in his Joy. My desire is to be near Christ, in his inner circle, and though I seek only the joy I know that Jesus will be there to help me bear the suffering that comes with it. And knowing that suffering will come, I still desire nothing more than to be with Christ and no where else.
     Walking with Christ means being a servant, not wanting to be first. Walking with Christ means having a mindset of servitude not self-fulfillment. Sometimes this means enduring an inner suffering, a quiet suffering that to truly serve means crying out to Christ from a quiet place.
1. In what way does this ‘servant” and slave mentality have the hardest time getting through?

STUDY GUIDE:
 Follow along in JOHN: 90 Days with the Beloved Disciple by Beth Moore pages 61-64
 Read Mark 10:35-45
 Answer the following questions in your study guide:
     1. Being very honest, where are the most telling pockets of immaturity in your life? In what way does this "servant” and “slave” mentality have the hardest time getting through?
     2. Thinking of some of the most mature believers you know, what is it that sets them apart?

 Share a brief highlight or two from your thoughts and answers in a comment posted to the group. (Read guidelines and cautions posted August 1, 2010 before you post).
 Read the comments of others and share your thoughts and encouragement with them by replying to their comments. Identify which post you are responding to by addressing them and their subject or pasting a brief portion of their reply at the start of your post.

PRAY WITH ME:
Lord, we desire to be close to you but we don’t always know what that truly is asking of us. We know that in you is our Joy and Peace but we tend to overlook the truth in your word that to follow you we will know suffering in your name. Help us to turn to you in the midst of our trials and rejoice even in our suffering. Teach us to walk in your example of servitude and not in self fulfillment. In Jesus name, Amen.