—

“Now who will want to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats. Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it…So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude He had, and be ready to suffer, too…”

-1 Peter 3:13-15, 4:1

Be ready to suffer?

“Be ready. Get ready. Here it comes. Are you finally breathing easy? Don’t trust it. More suffering is just around the corner.”

This is the direction my anxiety took things.

After Benaiah was hospitalized and Cody was bitten by a snake in July. It felt like…there’s no such thing as a fresh start. No matter where you go. No matter how you try. You will never find safe. Danger will always be lurking, just out of sight, and the second you let down your guard – it will hurt you, or it will hurt someone you love. Be it a copperhead, a decline in neuro status, a car accident, or another tumor, something awful is always coming. 

To those who are recognizing it. Yes, that is PTSD. Yes, that is getting addressed. But I’m letting you in on some of my heart’s distress, because I spent this summer going quiet publicly, so I could get in the quiet with Jesus and plead with Him to give me some sense of what He was doing with our lives, and to restore my sense of His safety and protection. And now, I’m ready to bring you along into what He’s teaching me, and what I am still learning. 

In response to a lot of things these last few months, I felt my heart drop to my stomach, like the floor was falling out from underneath me. A loud sound when we’re driving. A new group of lumps along the scar of my incision. Another hospital bill. The tornado warning on my phone telling us to get out of our trailer and move to more substantial structure immediately. 

I listened to a video of a surgeon from Mayo Clinic, working to reassure patients who had gotten my type of tumor removed and were wrestling with the stress of potential recurrence. He said something like: “I do understand it’s heavy to carry that possibility – with the need to keep coming for scans, because we can’t tell you for sure that it’s over. But as your doctor, I would share with you that it’s very damaging to your soul to be waiting for that other shoe to drop, and I don’t want you to miss your tumor-free years. Those years are a gift.”

He was walking well in the tension of “Yeah, we might have to deal with that again,” and “There’s a lot of good right now you’ll miss if you’re focusing on it.” And I wanted to learn that. 

Darn it, as far as I know, I am living a tumor-free year right now, and I don’t want to miss one day of it! For that matter, I am living a brain surgery, snake-bite, car accident, tornado-free day today, too. Even as we carry the ache of what we’ve survived, the day we are living right now is a gift. But it is a learned skill to see that again after suffering that has rocked your expectations and rubbed away the young and innocent way you used to see the world. 

And so I have been wrestling.

“Lord, You say to expect suffering.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
-John 16:33

“You tell me I may have peace. In the same breath, you tell me I will have trouble. How do I absorb the reality that there will be more. More and maybe even worse than what we’ve already walked through. How do I expect that and still not lose heart?”

“Just don’t think about it,” doesn’t work for me. I’m a thinker (and “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself,” is not actually saying “don’t think about it.” It’s saying “do not worry about it”).

The message God weaves throughout His word regarding the dangers we face is not just “don’t prepare.” I am learning to accept that God crafted me as a contingency, rescue-minded person who plans and prepares. A preparer and a responder, which is part of bearing His image as THE Preparer, and THE Responder. Scripturally, there’s a way to live out my design that is in line with truth, and it doesn’t look like worry, or waiting for the other shoe to drop. But that preparation, harnessed by the Holy Spirit, probably does looks like anticipating goodness and accepting there will be hard stuff. It will be both. 

“So how do I tell my nervous system it’s safe? What layer of your protection do I need to understand to settle in the here and now? How do I accept what I’ve walked through, and lean forward in wild, courageous trust? How do I get back to that Jonathan, David, Joshua, Caleb spirit of, “This may get hairy, but my God will be with me!”?

“Arm yourself,” kept coming up as I prayed about it, tossing up these questions when I wrestled with anxiety again.

I found the verse it came from in 1 Peter 4:1, “So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude He had, and be ready to suffer, too...”

“Arm yourselves with this same mind.”
Okay,  the same mind of Christ. The attitude He had. That’s what I arm myself with. Set like a flint to Jerusalem.

“Be ready to suffer.”
Be ready for the bad. Prepare for the pain.  Forgive the movie quote, but it brought to mind a scene from my favorite move, The Princess Bride. I used to think I was. Ready to suffer, like Westley in the Pit of Despair, bravely raising an eyebrow,

“So it’s to be torture then? Pff. I can cope with torture.”

The albino man sighed as he continued dabbing Westley’s wounds,

“Well, you survived the fire swamp, you must be very brave. But no one withstands the machine.”

Now I feel like the broken Westley in his second interview, just whimpering.

Prepare for pain? I’ve been through a lot of that, so I can prepare for more, but I don’t know how to not be worried, then.

“How do you say to someone “This is going to hurt,” and “don’t worry” at the same time, Lord? How can you ask me not to worry when you say stuff like that?”

I asked people. Wise people. Counselor people. How do I do this? 
“You have a lot of trauma,” they said.

“Doesn’t everybody?” I thought.

When I asked, “Well, moving forward, do I tell myself it’s over? That it’s not going to happen again?” No one could set my mind at ease. They can’t tell me it’s not going to happen again. Some of it is unlikely. Some of it is actually sort of likely. But I was asking people. So they couldn’t tell me what was going to happen next. I was trying so hard to manage my own heart and mind. But I needed the Lord to manage my heart and mind. 

What helped was a question one of them asked: “Where are you trying so hard to be like Christ, instead of asking Him to illuminate your limitations and to show you what you need from Him?”

So finally, at 3 am, during an early morning breathing treatment for an asthma exacerbation ramped up by bronchitis, I asked Him, “I can’t seem to get a handle on how to help my heart and mind through this. Will you help me manage them? Will you show me what I need to know?” I pulled out 1 Peter, the book that housed this “be ready to suffer” statement and asked, “Will you show me what you mean? Does “arm yourself and be ready to suffer” somehow mean more than “get ready for this to hurt?” 

I’ve been chewing on what I read, and what I noticed ever since.

“So don’t worry or be afraid…”
-1 Peter 3:14

Arm yourself and be ready to suffer, does not mean we should worry or be afraid. The paradox again. Be ready for hard, but don’t worry about it.

“Ok, Lord, you’re being pretty direct about the worry issue, so show me: How do I be ready to suffer without being worried?”

And then my attention slowed and rested on the word “arm”  in “Arm yourselves.”
In the Greek, it’s “hoplisasthe,” which means, “to equip with weapons.”

Here are the thoughts that surfaced:

“Worry” tries to get ready.
“Arm yourself” succeeds.
Worry braces itself and freezes, saying “Oh no, not again!”
“Arm yourself” accepts that battle will happen again and takes action that makes a difference.
Worry looks for ways to avoid a fight.
“Arm yourself” is preparing to win the fight. 
Worry is a pulling apart.
Arming is a pulling together.
Worry hopes that with enough information, it can dodge the blows.
Armor is something you put on to shield yourself from the impact of the blows.
Worry is characterized by dread.
“Arm yourself” is characterized by hope.

“…Be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin. You won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God.”

-1 Peter 4:1-2

Does that mean once we’ve suffered, we never sin again? No, that’s not what it’s getting at. 1 John 1:8-9 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Scripture lays out that, through the cross, for those who believe in Jesus, our sin is completely paid for (Hebrews 10:10), and we will walk out this life on Earth, battling and wrestling in a sanctifying, internal war between the Spirit and our flesh/sin nature (Romans 7:14-8:1), until the day we see Jesus face to face, and He makes all things new. We can have victory, but we will not be perfect.

It doesn’t mean we’ll never sin again, but I do think this verse is saying that as we suffer, our assessment of sin’s payoff changes. “Hamartia,” the word used for sin in Scripture, means “missing the mark.” It also means “loss.” And the word “done with,” in the phrase “done with sin,” means not only “stop,” but also “refrain” or “restraint.” Suffering develops our restraint. Suffering exposes our deep needs and changes our tolerance for missing the mark and empty chasing. Suffering saps our energy for broken cisterns that do not satisfy. (Jeremiah 2:13).

MacLaren’s Expositions says it this way: “Clearly, the words which follow it forbid its being taken to mean that dead men do not sin. The Apostle’s thought seems to be that such suffering in daily life after Christ’s pattern, and by His help, is at once a sign that the sufferer has shaken off the dominion of sin, and is a means of further emancipating him from it.”

Notice how 1 Peter 3 and 4 carry us from “Don’t be anxious. Don’t be afraid of their threats” to “you will be anxious to do the will of God.” In Greek, the word anxious isn’t there the second time. It literally says, “Not to the desires of men, but to the will of God, to live the remaining time in flesh.”

This is how I would put it in my words: Arm yourselves with Christ’s attitude and be ready to suffer, because it will develop in you a restraint flowing from both the immense power source that is Christ, the One who suffered, and the forming of a deep unwillingness to waste what’s left of your time chasing desires that miss the mark. You will want to use what’s left going after what God desires. Get ready for the difficulty, because you will know, through this, that He is where it’s at. It will train you to use what’s left well.

“…Even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats. Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.”

-1 Peter 3:14-15

“So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats,”

Here I noticed the layer of intimidation and empty threats. Scripture acknowledges that we have an enemy with schemes and scare tactics who aims to intimidate us away from battle with fear. But we have a Savior with substance and real strength. True power is not afraid of a fight.

“Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life.”

It’s not, “Trust me because nothing bad is going to happen, so you don’t have to think about it or do anything about it.” God doesn’t tell us not to prepare. He just offers better preparation. He tells us to prepare by worship.

I’m saying it again because my heart needed it more than once and maybe yours does, too. Consider taking a moment to sit with this:

Our flesh and the Spirit both invite us to prepare, but
The flesh’s version of preparation is worry.
The Spirit’s version of preparation is worship.

My goodness, do I love it when the Bible tells me what to do instead. Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid, 

Instead, worship Christ.

In this verse, the word “worship” or in some translations “sanctify,” means: to venerate, regard as sacred, acknowledge, mark as holy, revere internally.

The phrase could be translated, “As Lord sanctify Christ in your hearts.” It’s worship, and it’s even more than worship. It describes looking at Jesus in a way that hallows Him in our hearts as the One worthy to run things. “Sanctify” is “set this apart as special.” “Sanctify as Lord,” I think is a little closer to “bend the knee, my friend.” In your internal world, surrender to His authority over your life and His care for you. It’s the kind of worship where we humble ourselves before Him and finally let go of the fight for control that belongs to Him. 

Maybe you’re suffering, and you can’t find a thing you did to cause it. It just feels senseless. If so, trust that God will reward you. Don’t be afraid of the threat of even more. Mark out Christ in your heart as the Lord – the One who loves you and holds all things together (Colossians 1:17). Worship Him. And put on the armor and protection of His attitude.

What was His attitude? Great question. That’s another whole Bible Study. If that phrase tugs at you, I encourage you to go explore it, both in the rest of 1 Peter and in Philippians 2.

For today, I’ll just tell you that if you’ve walked through pain, and now you find yourself growing tight inside when you look ahead, I get it. 

At 3:30 am, I sat in the stillness with this passage in 1 Peter. And as the nebulizer choked out the last of its chest tightness-relieving mist, not only did my breathing come easier, my tired heart rested.

Are you tired?

Do you need rest?

After wrestling with how to absorb our story, how to look forward with trust, how to get a sense of “I am safe,” how to not lose heart and how to keep going, while holding the complex reality that we walk in a broken world, we’re in battle, and the race is far from over; I cried out to Jesus to come manage my heart and mind, because I couldn’t.

 “I, even I, am the Lord,
    and apart from me there is no savior.”
-Isaiah 43:11

I don’t know what’s coming, and neither does anyone else, but He does. Both He and the people who are His hands and feet of healing are binding my wounds, tending to what I’ve walked through, but He, and only He, can prepare me for what’s still to come. 

And it starts with worship.

“For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”

-Hebrews 12:3

When I feel the tug to worry, I will worship instead. I will dwell on Christ, sufficient for every storm; compassionate toward every weakness; broken for my heartache; who cried til He bled over the difficulty of what He was asked to walk out, but never lost heart; who knew deep weariness, and still renewed His strength and took courage. Christ, who armed Himself for battle. His victory in that battle changed everything. And then He gave it to us.

Are you tired?

I see you. Me, too. But let’s not let that weariness lead to a worry that pulls us apart inside.

Arm yourselves.

And then rest in your protection.

“Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.
 O death, where is your victory?
 O death, where is your sting?”

For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.”

-1 Corinthians 15:54-58

Oh Lord,

I invite your Spirit into my wounded and fearful places. Please, where I worry, give me courage. Where I want to prepare, help me do it your way. By worshipping. By remembering what I’m fighting for. By putting on the armor that protects me from the blows of the fight. By being ready to suffer, but also expecting to win. 

And please, in this moment, meet my brothers and sisters who are hurting, disoriented, discouraged, anxious, and hopeless. Meet them right here, in this moment, right where they are, and whisper hope to their spirits. Gently lead them to fix their eyes on you, and then to be ready. Not because something bad is about to happen, but because this is the territory where you’re ready to fight for their freedom. Help us stand firm and refuse to be afraid of our enemy’s threats. Because you bring the power, and no one can contest it.

In Your Mighty Name, Yeshua, “God saves,”
Amen

“If God is for us, who can be against us?”
-Romans 8:31

“Even from eternity, I am He, and none can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?”
-Isaiah 43:13

“I have set the Lord continually before me;
Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
-Psalm 16:8

“A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.”
-Ephesians 6:10-11

“They do not fear bad news. They confidently trust the Lord to care for them. They are confident and fearless and can face their foes triumphantly.“

-Psalm 112:7-8