Growing Pains

Andrew Murray writes in Abiding in Christ:

"Let us try to understand this. The suggestive expression, "Planted into the likeness of His death," will teach us what the abiding in the Crucified One means. When a graft is united with the stock on which it is to grow, we know that it must be kept fixed, it must abide in the place where the stock has been cut, been wounded, to make an opening to receive the graft. No graft without wounding the laying bare and opening up of the inner life of the tree to receive the stranger branch. It is only through such wounding that access can be obtained to the fellowship of the sap and the growth and the life of the stronger stem."

As some of you know, I've gone through a time in my life that I never thought that I'd go through. The pain from this experience has had several effects on my life, but none more important than that which is described in the above passage. The motivation behind pain to conform that pain to that which Christ suffered on the cross is perhaps the most important thing that we as Christians can do in identifying with Christ's suffereings. It is only as we are engrafted into His vine, as we have everything that we knew to be cut away and severed completely and then allow ourselves to be enjoined with Christ, do we know the true essence of what it means to Abide in Him.

"No good thing will He withhold from you."