A Strange Kind of Fellowship

Doug Wolter:

Paul Miller’s book, A Praying Life, has affected me deeply. I cannot recommend it to you highly enough. Here’s one section that grabbed a hold of me and hasn’t let go for days. Next to this quote in the side margin of my book I wrote, “need to meditate on this.”

Whenever you love, you reenact Jesus’ death. Consequently, gospel stories always have suffering in them. American Christianity has an allergic reaction to this part of the gospel. We’d love to hear about God’s love for us, but suffering doesn’t mesh with our right to “the pursuit of happiness.” So we pray to escape a gospel story, when that is the best gift the Father can give us.

The Father wants to draw us into the story of his Son. He doesn’t have a better story to tell, so he keeps retelling it in our lives. As we reenact the gospel, we are drawn into a strange kind of fellowship. The taste of Christ is so good that the apostle Paul told the Philippians that he wanted to know “the fellowship of sharing in [Jesus'] sufferings” (Phil. 3:10).