"I Know Their Suffering"

This isn't really a post about my Journeyman application or anything, but more of a post of a way that God really blew my mind.  

I like to read Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening every now and then.  Last week I was reading one and Spurgeon was talking about Exodus 3:7b, which in the ESV says "I know their suffering."  I was really just blown away.  I looked up the verse and the context, and Exodus 3 is where God reveals himself to Moses.  I looked up different translations of the verse. In the NLT the verse reads "I am aware of their suffering."  The NIV reads "I am concerned about their suffering."  And then I read it in the ESV which reads "I know their suffering."

This brought up some questions for me.  Does God really know our suffering?  Or does he just know about it and is concerned about it?  I don't know Hebrew (yet), so I can't really look at the verse in the original language to decide.  But as perhaps some of you know, I think my favorite verse has a lot about to say about this exact thing!

John 1:14!  It says, "The word became flesh and lived among us."  This is, as many people have described it to me, absolutely incredible, and sooo earthy if you really think about it.  God himself experienced all sorts of physical things, such as headaches, stomach aches, throwing up, diarrhea, and all manner of crazy earthy things!  It may seem a little bit disrespectful to refer to Jesus in this way, remarking on these things, but I think it really shows his humanity.  Not only did he experience these physical representations of suffering, but he also experienced insane amounts of emotional and spiritual suffering.  God himself experienced grief and heartache.  The Bible says that "Jesus wept" when he was brought to see Lazarus.  But of course, I think the greatest representation of Jesus' suffering is the cross, when he experienced suffering in the most excruciating way, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

So, to answer my questions, YES, God really does know our suffering.  He knows it both as knowledge, but also existentially, because he was a man, and has experienced everything that we've experienced.  And this is just absolutely incredible to me and such a cause to worship God.  I pray that if you're in the middle of suffering, that you might be encouraged by the fact that God himself has been there, and He can really relate to you, and moreover, he really wants to relate to you.  So I think all the translations are true of God; he is aware of our suffering, he's concerned about our suffering, and he really does know our suffering in an existential way.

Praise God :)

The Beginning of Something New

A few days ago I submitted the initial information forms and began the application process to become a Journeyman. Today I received several emails from the IMB. The most important one to me is the one with a link to complete the application (which I think is supposed to take quite a while.)

I'm so very excited for this process and hopefully its culmination: becoming a Journeyman. God has been drawing me to mission for several years now and as I get closer to graduating, I realize that I need more experience on the mission field. I think the Journeyman program will be very good for me in my development as a person, Christian and missionary.

For those of you who do not know what a Journeyman is, it is a two year mission trip which can focus on a number of things, such as Church Planting, Student Ministry, etc.  It is done in conjunction with missionaries who are already on the field for the IMB.  I think this is a particularly great feature of the program because the missionaries on the field understand the issues that may come about for new missionaries and might be prepared to help the Journeyman deal with those issues (such as culture shock).

The reason I'm writing this is to ask you if you would pray for me as I go through this process. I plan to hopefully blog about major steps along the way so y'all can know exactly what to pray for. If you do decide to pray for me, please let me know, so I can talk with you personally about my experiences.

For now, please pray for the rest of the application process. Pray that I can finish it promptly but thoroughly. Pray that I answer questions as honestly and openly as I can.

Thanks so much for your prayer :)

Grace abounds,
Andrew Nelson