The past 24 hours have been an involuntary fast. The bug hit me at 4:00 in the morning. Half an hour of violence followed by a day of aching and dull misery. I’ve been ruminating a lot lately on Hebrews 5:8 which says “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered”. So as I was in midst of evacuating the contents of my stomach I had this verse floating through the back of my mind. An observation that hit me was that in the midst of suffering the world closes in on me. The only thing that exists is my pain and my only goal is to find relief. I simply don’t care about anything else. Thanks to God that Jesus overcame this “closing in” and saw beyond the immediacy and intensity of his own suffering to endure the cross – for the joy set before him. It’s a frightening prayer, but I pray that I can endure suffering as Christ did, that when the world closes in on me I can see beyond myself and my circumstances and continue to live in obedience.