Small Thoughts on Suffering

Nearly every human will admit to some sort of suffering, whether in their body, mind or spirit, or, in relationships with other humans.  Most often, we as humans view suffering as bad, that is, the pain overshadows and at times interferes with our ability to creatively think how in the world could this hurtful body or painful situation result in good.

Herein lies the problem with our small human minds: small thoughts on suffering are the result. I will not defend in this post mankind's technological progress nor it's scientific understanding of our world and the universe.  The plain fact is that we just do not know everything.  Blaise Pascal, the brilliant French mathematician and physicist, was quoted as saying, "Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, let us know a little bit about everything."

Dilemma, isn't it?

Fortuitously, mankind was given, as a gift, the answer.  No, not as a scientific discovery or math equation, neither an excavation of an ancient civilization or newly created substance is the answer derived. The answer arrived apart from our doing, from the One who existed before time began.

For brevity's sake, the One is the Eternal, Triune God, three persons yet of one substance and not created. We owe our life to Him, whether we acknowledge or believe it to be true. "In him we live and move and have our being" reads Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17, verse 28, from the Sacred Scriptures, the Holy Bible.

"What is truth?" asked Pilate, ruler of Judea, responding to Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, not realizing that here in front of him stood the Truth .  Relativism rules today, at least in our culture, and in our small minds.  Yet, the Sovereign God rules over heaven and earth.  Illusion rules otherwise.

Back to suffering...our view of the world determines how we understand suffering.  Views vary, but the only one that makes sense, the one to which I return is God's revelation.  He alone makes sense of suffering:  a sin problem exists (God sets the boundaries - obey and flourish; disobey and die) and we, as mankind have rebelled against him. Suffering, as opposed to flourishing in life with God, is the end result.

It's our own doing, starting with Adam and Eve believing God was holding out on them, not giving them the best, rebelling, and continuing throughout history to today. The only way out of it, God says, is bloodshed, wrath and death.  Because we could never give what God needs for the atoning of our sins, He provides the answer to our sin problem:  He gives Himself.

The historical Jesus, the Christ, born to a virgin, living a sinless and righteous life (yes, he obeyed his earthly parents just as His Heavenly Father), suffering, being crucified and resurrected - God in the flesh.  Fully human, fully God.  How this can be is agreed upon through the centuries to be a mystery, yet God revealed this truth through His Word.

Even 500 to 600 years prior to Christ's crucifixion, the words of Isaiah (53:4-6) prophesied the brutal suffering of Christ and result for us.

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. ⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. ⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Again, for the sake of space, I'll cut to the end.  Our sin and hostility to God were borne by Christ.  He is the "he" and "him" in the quote from Isaiah above.  Do you believe Christ atoned for your sins and there's nothing you can do to stay the wrath and judgment of God?  If so, salvation, peace, eternal life and so much more are yours.

Suffering...unemployment, broken relationships with sisters and brothers, terminal disease, lifelong illness, unsaved family, homeless, abused...Christ suffered and He continues to suffer with us.  Baffling.  No other "god" makes this claim. In this context only is suffering and the ability to bear up under it made possible because the One who bore our sins continues to bear us, upholding us by His grace and mercy.

May you see with eyes of faith this Holy Week the One, the Christ, who alone takes away the sins of the world, and suffers today with His children.

-CFM

Chosen

(Copyright 2008 by Hannah Miller)

Clarity of understanding is sometimes slow in coming. As on a humid morning it can take time for the fog to evaporate.

Personal clarity, for which I can take no credit, is coming. It started a few Sundays ago when our pastor asked during his sermon why we were here, worshiping in church, believing in Jesus, when in Myanmar (Burma) a storm had wiped out hundreds of thousands of a population that has just a single digit percentage of Christians. Most died as unbelievers yet there I was, alive and saved. Why? Why me? The very fact that I do believe points to the even greater and more significant fact that God loves me, chose me and did so first.

What a thought! What magnitude of love this is! God loved me first? He is pleased with me? Yet I have done nothing.

My fog cleared a little more yesterday while in family devotions we read Romans 9:18: "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden." So not only did God choose me, there will be and are those that won't be chosen. It's not easy to grasp. In Calvinism, this is the idea of election. What joy in realizing I'm elected!

Then we read John 6:39: "And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but will raise them up at the last day." Even greater news: I can not lose my salvation because I do not carry the responsibility of attaining it. I am given to Christ and He has bestowed upon me salvation; it's not mine to lose.

And then today, I was reading through the Psalms and ended up cross-referencing John 6 again. I didn't even realize until just now but it is what we read yesterday. John 6:36 states, "But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe." I thought, "How could the Israelites not get it; how could they not realize that Jesus is God?" Then I realized as I read it again that I wouldn't get it. God could be standing right in front of me, like he did 2000 years ago to the Hebrew crowds, and I still wouldn't get it if he had not lifted my fog.

I would have to agree with Spurgeon who said, " I believe in the doctrine of election, because I am quite sure that if God had not chosen me I would never would have chosen him..."

--HM

An Established Phenomenon

It rained yesterday.

Now that is nothing profound since we are in the rainy season and it rains almost daily. However, I never tire of rain showers. When our little storm was over, my dad called out, "There's a rainbow!" All of us scurried excitedly to different windows to catch a glimpse of this phenomenon.

"Phenomenon?" you may ask. "We see that all the time!" I'll agree, it is a frequent occurrence. Science even has broken it down into a technical explanation:

"An arc-shaped spectrum of color seen in the sky opposite the Sun, especially after rain, caused by the refraction and reflection of sunlight by droplets of water suspended in the air. Secondary rainbows that are larger and paler sometimes appear within the primary arc with the colors reversed (red beinginside). These result from two reflections and refractions of a light ray
inside a droplet. " (The American Heritage Science
Dictionary)

But a rainbow is much more than droplets of water suspended in air. According to Scripture, it is an established sign, an everlasting covenant between God, Noah, Noah's descendant's (that's us!), and all living creature on the earth.

"And God said, 'This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and ever living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.'" (Genesis 9:12-16,emphasis added)

After the thunder clouds roll away and the rain clears up, we stand here on earth and see a rainbow. At the same time, God in heaven promises he will see the rainbow as well and remember His promise. Is that not incredible? Sometimes I can't quite wrap my mind around it. That a sign established thousands of years ago is being enacted every day with God taking note. Yes, it is indeed incredible!

So I urge you next time you see a rainbow to keep in mind that the God of the universe is at that moment witnessing with you the sign of His promise: never to destroy the earth with a flood again! Gather your family to the windows and view this amazing phenomenon.

--Hannah