Suffering
I write this with inspiration from our dear Ravi Zach...
A darkness that seems to choke and strangle. A torrent of emotion that seems to be breaking through the protective dams that you have constructed. I think we all have gone through times like this. times when God just seems so far away. times when the goodness of God though so real and awesome in the shadow of the past, at present seems nothing more than the rantings and nonsensical proclaimations of a few mad men who wrote a little book 2000 yrs ago. innately, i think many of us feel that by the natural order of things, only the evil should be made to suffer while the righteous should be spared the agony and pain. sure we all know (since churches has drill us with such doctrines since our childhood) that suffering will come even though we have accepted Christ, and that he will be our strength through it all, but somewhere inside, especially when we have suffered for a protracted period of time, when we come so close to that line between sanity and absolute madness, the shield of theology starts to crack and there we start to doubt his sovereignty...
Besides the suffering of christ, another character is often mentioned when this topic is preached or discussed in church, Job, the righteous man whom God allowed immense tragedy to befall on.
what just struck me is that Job was a righteous man, yet he suffered! that would mean that the whole arguement for Cause and Effect is completely thrown out the window! He suffers not the consequences of some dodgy sin that he committed in the past, and obviously the whole idea of carry forward Karma is inapplicable in our context, there is no apparent past reason for his current suffering! so why then is Almighty God causing such great pains on this man, this man whom even God himself declares righteous?
Ravi's Answers...
We can seek solace in that God was the ultimate Designer! that he could create the heavens and the earth out of nothing, that with the Chaos before creation he could create that which was good and pleasing to him! in an infinitely larger scale he could make good come out of Chaos, how much more will he be able to make good come out of our suffering!
our suffering is given meaning by who he is! for we know that our God is loving and that he is good, therefore all suffering somehow ends up for the betterment of ourselves. By clinging on to the fact that he is our father and we are his children, again we can find strength in that though this life may be destined with insurmountable pain, his pain at it's end is rewarded by such great reward and riches as promises in ephesians 1, that our suffering is honestly so so small and minute! when we remember and adopt the right posture in life about God and who God is, the pain of suffering and the agony it festers may or may not lessen, but there is always light at the end of the tunnel!
another, a story he shared, that during our suffering we are forced to bare ourselves, to truly just renounce all defenses and self reliance and open ourselves to the full fury of our situation! and there, at that point of breaking and imminent destruction, we will create the most beautiful of poetry, sing the most meaningful of hymns, just as the older christians have done, and Lo! we benefit from the suffering that they have underwent. take for example the writer of the hymn, "It is well with my soul". i cant remember his name but i remember that he lost not only his beloved wife, but also the consumation of his marriage that was found in his two children. Tis when we have gone through the furnace of suffering, when we are burnt beyond recognition, then can we write and narrate to others the pain and agony of our suffering and the healing balm and wonderful reimbursement of our Lord Jesus! all this for the benefit of others! the sad thing is, one would often rather learn from the suffering of others than to be subjected to the suffering itself... alas, this privilege is subject to his sovereignty and his will is perfect. sigh.
alas the yoke of suffering is hard to bear, but to those who have been given this cup, we shall drink it and we shall rejoice! but the cups that we drink from are meant for our good, even though at times the good seems O so impossible...
-Ian Kwan
A darkness that seems to choke and strangle. A torrent of emotion that seems to be breaking through the protective dams that you have constructed. I think we all have gone through times like this. times when God just seems so far away. times when the goodness of God though so real and awesome in the shadow of the past, at present seems nothing more than the rantings and nonsensical proclaimations of a few mad men who wrote a little book 2000 yrs ago. innately, i think many of us feel that by the natural order of things, only the evil should be made to suffer while the righteous should be spared the agony and pain. sure we all know (since churches has drill us with such doctrines since our childhood) that suffering will come even though we have accepted Christ, and that he will be our strength through it all, but somewhere inside, especially when we have suffered for a protracted period of time, when we come so close to that line between sanity and absolute madness, the shield of theology starts to crack and there we start to doubt his sovereignty...
Besides the suffering of christ, another character is often mentioned when this topic is preached or discussed in church, Job, the righteous man whom God allowed immense tragedy to befall on.
what just struck me is that Job was a righteous man, yet he suffered! that would mean that the whole arguement for Cause and Effect is completely thrown out the window! He suffers not the consequences of some dodgy sin that he committed in the past, and obviously the whole idea of carry forward Karma is inapplicable in our context, there is no apparent past reason for his current suffering! so why then is Almighty God causing such great pains on this man, this man whom even God himself declares righteous?
Ravi's Answers...
We can seek solace in that God was the ultimate Designer! that he could create the heavens and the earth out of nothing, that with the Chaos before creation he could create that which was good and pleasing to him! in an infinitely larger scale he could make good come out of Chaos, how much more will he be able to make good come out of our suffering!
our suffering is given meaning by who he is! for we know that our God is loving and that he is good, therefore all suffering somehow ends up for the betterment of ourselves. By clinging on to the fact that he is our father and we are his children, again we can find strength in that though this life may be destined with insurmountable pain, his pain at it's end is rewarded by such great reward and riches as promises in ephesians 1, that our suffering is honestly so so small and minute! when we remember and adopt the right posture in life about God and who God is, the pain of suffering and the agony it festers may or may not lessen, but there is always light at the end of the tunnel!
another, a story he shared, that during our suffering we are forced to bare ourselves, to truly just renounce all defenses and self reliance and open ourselves to the full fury of our situation! and there, at that point of breaking and imminent destruction, we will create the most beautiful of poetry, sing the most meaningful of hymns, just as the older christians have done, and Lo! we benefit from the suffering that they have underwent. take for example the writer of the hymn, "It is well with my soul". i cant remember his name but i remember that he lost not only his beloved wife, but also the consumation of his marriage that was found in his two children. Tis when we have gone through the furnace of suffering, when we are burnt beyond recognition, then can we write and narrate to others the pain and agony of our suffering and the healing balm and wonderful reimbursement of our Lord Jesus! all this for the benefit of others! the sad thing is, one would often rather learn from the suffering of others than to be subjected to the suffering itself... alas, this privilege is subject to his sovereignty and his will is perfect. sigh.
alas the yoke of suffering is hard to bear, but to those who have been given this cup, we shall drink it and we shall rejoice! but the cups that we drink from are meant for our good, even though at times the good seems O so impossible...
-Ian Kwan
posted by Ian Kwan at 6:05 PM
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