Moving Towards God
When life is very difficult, people sometimes lay hold of resources that they never knew they had. The easy-going, self-centered exterior is cast off and a person of heroic stature emerges. Under pressure, false and foolish facades slip away. A new person emerges, or rather the one who has lain dormant these many years, tyrannized by an outward image bearing little resemblance to what was within. Suffering causes the mirror to crack. As the pieces fall away, we see what is hidden behind.
In the culture of the industrialized Western world, it is difficult to accept suffering. We are led to expect that it should not occur. If we lack acceptance or love of self-confidence, perhaps some consumer item will redeem the situation. Like some vast pharmacy, our technological society offers a remedy for almost every ailment. We come to believe it is not right to experience pain. We are encouraged to block it out, to forget our misery, to act “normally.” Millions of people walk around pretending to be “normal.”
—Michael Casey,
Toward God
Suffering has a way of stripping away what is false, exposing the truest parts of us—parts we often never knew existed. When life presses in, the easy exterior we’ve built to please others or protect ourselves begins to crack, and in that breaking, something sacred can happen. Beneath the polished image and the daily distractions, there may be a soul quietly longing for God, waiting to awaken. Hardship often becomes the holy ground where this awakening begins—not because pain is good in itself, but because it invites us to look deeper, to move past pretending, and to discover who we really are and who God really is.
In a world that tells us to numb the pain or distract ourselves with temporary fixes, the invitation of suffering is different. It invites us not to escape, but to move toward God. When we stop pretending and allow the mirror to crack, we may finally see that what remains is not emptiness, but the beginning of truth. God meets us there—not in the image we uphold, but in the vulnerable soul behind it. So when the pressure comes and the masks fall away, don’t retreat. Move toward God. He is already moving toward you. —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics