This is a follow-up on “God is the One at the end of the line” (posted 7/5/09). This quote from Amy Carmichael caused a paradigm shift in my thinking when I first read it, and I continue to come back to it periodically. She’s commenting on how St. Paul called himself a “prisoner for the Lord” numerous times. “Do not be ashamed of testifying to our Lord, nor of me his prisoner” (2 Tim 1:8) :
It takes all the sting out of a disappointment if we see it as Paul did. Isn’t it interesting that never once does he call himself Nero’s prisoner, though he was chained by Nero’s chain and in Nero’s cell? This has been a great comfort to me. We don’t admit the domination of Nero–no, not for an hour. We have to do only with the sovereignship of Christ.
And that brought to mind this same orientation from St. Paul of the Cross, this time in reference to Jesus. “[Jesus] said to Peter, as Peter was wielding his sword against the soldiers who had come to take Jesus, ‘Put your sword into its scabbard. Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?’ (Jn 18:11)”
It is significant that Jesus did not say, “Am I not to drink the cup that these soldiers are giving me?” or “the cup that Annas or Pilate is giving me?” Jesus saw everything as coming from the hand of his Father and did not take the cup from those whom St. Paul of the Cross calls “intermediaries”. Jesus took it directly from the hand of his Father.
Can we say the same about the difficulties in our own lives?
Witnesses to Hope 