Why Do We Suffer?

This winter has been for some, a struggle to survive.  During Lent, we Christ-followers turn toward Jerusalem & the Cross, as we remember Jesus' sacrificial suffering, for us.  Remembering the Savior's sufferings, can be a time to reflect on our own suffering.  Why do we suffer?

Billy Graham deals with why God's children suffer in his book, Hope for the Troubled Heart.  One reason we all suffer is because we sin or disobey God.  Graham writes:  "If a Christian loses his temper, tells a lie, or commits a sin of any kind, he will suffer God's judgment... just as a child needs correcting, so God's children need correcting."

Sometimes, like a loving Parent, God needs to discipline us, his children.  Graham tells about his father punishing him as a child, but he knew that his father loved him.  Jesus says, "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline."  (Revelation 3:19)  A wise person considers whether his problem is deserved as God's discipline. 

Graham asks: "Can we profit from pain?"
        Remember Job?  If ever a man had trials, it was this fellow.  But this is what he         
        concluded: When God has tested me, I will come forth as gold  (Job 23:10)  This is    
        reacting positively to testing, building on it, rather than criticizing it for interfering   
        with life's normal patterns.
  
       Trials often come {because God} seeks to make us into the sort of person He   
       planned  for us to be when He first thought of us.  Like a sculptor,  He begins with a   
       lump of marble.  But He has in mind a picture of what He intends to create.  He 
       breaks, cracks, chisels, and polishes until one day there emerges His vision, like   
       Michelangelo's David.  At the moment, His sculpture of us is incomplete.  God has   
       not yet finished with us.  (page 91)

Sometimes we bring a problem on ourselves.  Ever know a man who has an affair, and then his marriage fell apart?  She smoked for years, and now she has breathing problems.  A parent allowed a child to what whatever he pleased for years, and now wonders why he cannot be managed. 

Suffering deepens our relationship with God.  Graham writes, "Nothing will drive us to our knees quicker than than trouble... God hears our prayers, but our prayers must be in accordance with His will." (page 92)  Our problems can cause us to ask if we're praying for the right things.  Our struggles force us to look deeper.

Take another look at these causes of suffering, and ask yourself: Why am I suffering?  Accept responsibility for what you've said or done.  Seek to learn from your suffering.  In this season of journeying toward Jesus' sufferings and death, let us remember His prayer on the night before He was crucified, "Not my will, but your will be done."  Our problems keep us humble and cause us to pray.  Struggles can lead us to us to a deeper relationship with the Savior.  Let God's Spirit lead you.

Accepting Pain in Our Lives

May 10 is Fibromyalgia Awareness Day.  I've lived with fibromyalgia pain for about 15 years now, since I was a young Dad in my late 30s.  Like everyone with chronic pain, I've spent much time, money, & energy in trying to get rid of or reduce my pain.  But for some reason, God continues to allow it in my body.  As a friend once said to me, maybe it's my cross to bear.

I gradually had to come to accept my pain, as it comes every day and night.  The thing is, I've learned from this physical pain, and in a few unexpected ways, God's actually blessed me through it.  The most basic thing I've learned from it is humility.  I had some success in my younger years, and without my pain, I may have become proud, a guy with an ego problem.

When the apostle Paul wrote about his thorn in the flesh, he wrote, Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12: 8-9). 
God has used my pain to keep me humble and to help me emphasize and sympathize with others who live with chronic pain.  Studies say that a third to half of the people in our lives, live with some kind of chronic pain.  Thus it seems like God's used my pain to make me a better, more caring person.

If you know someone with chronic pain, ask how you can help him/her in their daily life, and be prepared to listen and help.  Be careful about saying things like, "God will heal you," or "if you did this or than, you'd be better off."  Words like those can cause more damage than help.  Praying for someone with pain is great, but realize you might not understand how God's using pain in that person's life, or whether God desires to heal her/him.  Be a servant-friend to that person; that would be a way to truly love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus Himself suffered severe agony and pain in the 24 hours leading up to his death on the cross.  Let us follow the Master by accepting pain in our lives and letting God use it to teach us.

Enter the Humility Gate

As Jesus traveled toward Jerusalem and the cross, knowing the suffering that He would have to endure there, He submitted his desires and will to his Heavenly Father’s will.  That is true humility. 

Philippians 2:6-8 describes the humility of Jesus “who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!”

If you had the choice of living equally with God in heaven, or being asked to sacrifice your life for others on earth, which would you choose?  If you deserve to be treated as royalty, would you accept being treated like a servant without complaint?  How do you respond when treated poorly?  That’s why humility is one of the hardest things for us humans.

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was built on the site where Jesus was born. Every tourist must stoop to enter it.  The main entrance is so low that only a small child can enter it without bending over.  The door was designed to prevent medieval warriors on horseback from riding into the sanctuary to slaughter Christians there.  That danger no longer exists, but the low door has not been raised.  You must bow down to enter the place where the Savior was born as a lowly human.  This is known as the “Humility Gate.”  It reminds everyone who enters, no matter what their status in life, that they must enter into the presence of God humbly. 

During these weeks before Jesus’ suffering and agonizing death, we need to get down on our knees or bow our hearts humbly before the Master.  Have you ever considered God’s humility through the Son’s life?   God’s Son became human in a poor, humble scene in a barn or cave, not in a castle or fine medical facility.  Jesus served sinners and unloved outcasts like Zaccheus.  He called himself a shepherd - an occupation that was looked down upon by middle-class folks because shepherds were dirty, ceremonially unclean, and thus not allowed to worship in the temple.  Shepherds were not allowed to testify in a court of law, because everyone knew that shepherds were untrustworthy thieves.

Jesus was the "Good Shepherd" who associated with the despised, the leper, the prostitute, fraudulent tax collectors and the Samaritan.  Jesus reminds us, “those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Matthew 23:12)  Like a slave, He washed the disciples’ feet, which was the lowest act of service that one could imagine.

During these weeks of Lent, may we enter through the Humility Gate, as we recall the Master’s humility.