I thank God that we do not have a King, a Savior, a Friend, a Brother, a God who is not far off. We do not serve a distant God who sits on a throne and just watches, but we have a God who chose to enter into our folly and our rebellion that he may sympathize and endure the same burdens and trials that we go through.
"Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:14-16
When Jesus is the most weighty and precious possession in our lives, then all other things begin to seem meaningless and empty. So when you face trial or adversity you are able to suffer well, because you have a King that can sympathize with you, that will walk with you through the suffering, will teach you in the suffering, and in turn you begin to know your King more and you become more like Him, growing to sympathize with others who are going through trials in their lives. Thank Jesus that he chose to come into human history, to become like us, to become the least of us, and to live the perfect life on our behalf, take upon his body and soul the wrath of God that we deserve, to die the death that we are condemned to, to bury sin in the grave seperating its consequences as far as the east is from the west, and to rise again conquering sin, satan, death, hell, and demons on our behalf. What great news, what a great salvation, what a great God and Savior.
So on day two of our journey when we were side tracked twice off exits and lost in the forth largest city in Mexico, we did not have fear admist our trial, we had the comfort of the Spirit of a conquering savior admist our trial sympathizing with our distress and helping us to find answers and the way back to our toll roads and destinations. And through the distress not once did we ever fear for our situation or our lives. The exits in mexico can be very tricky because they lack good signs and are very abrupt sometimes, so because of this we accidently missed/took two wrong exists which put us off our intended highways and searching for a place to turn around, and turning around in mexico is not just getting of the next exit and getting back on, their infrastructure isn't always like that. We had a GPS but it wasn't always accurate and some times landed us a little off the mark, so we had to do it by sight and in cooperation with GPS program. The first exit took us into the outer edges of a major city and the second missed exit forced me to do a U-Turn in the middle of the highway, which later caused me some distress because it also caused me to miss the toll booth, but we worked it out in the end at the other end of the toll road. But the two missed exits didn't compare to the getting lost in rush hour in the forth largest town in Mexico. Our travels took us around the largest city, Mexico city, and into a city called Puebla. Our GPS wouldn't take addresses so I put in coordinates to our destination and in all the crazy traffic (they don't have lanes on the city streets, its basically drive as you can find room and a place to fit into) neglected to look at the map in our camping book that gave more specific direction. So inspite of the written map we followed the GPS, but it landed us in the wrong spot in some back neighborhood where the locals did not know of the place we were looking for. So we headed back to the main roads where traffic was now even worse and forced us into another neighborhood because we could not turn around. Anyway 45 minutes later after asking for directions, going down one way streets, and watching the sun begin to set we found out street and three men who flagged us down to guide us in to our location. The three men lived in the resort we were going to, and one spoke great english and was a huge fan of volkswagon westfalia's. Anyway the place had so much character. I don't have a picture but it was a mix between RV park, apartments, housing, and resort. So we parked began to set up camp and prepare our bodies and minds for the next day. I will say this was one of the longest days of my life I was ready to call it a night.
Thank God that He is not one to keep us from suffering, or take away our suffering, but He is one who suffered for the whole world and walks with us through our sufferings showing us how to suffer well and rejoice always in the praise of His name, His salvation, and His victory over our rebellion ad folly.
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