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Suffering
【Problem of Evil】Whatever the answer to why there is evil and
suffering in the world, this much is true: God took his own medicine.
【Purpose of
Evil】A composer of a musical score sometimes includes some
discords to create an overall pleasing effect. In a similar manner, God’s
ultimate purpose for the world was best served by a plan that allowed for the
presence and activity of evil.
【Purpose of Pain】There is an
ancient Chinese philosophy which says: “To be dry and thirsty in a hot and
dusty land-and to feel great drops of rain on my bare skin-ah, is this not
happiness? To have an itch in the private parts of my body-and finally to
escape from my friends and to a hiding place where I can scratch-ah, is this
not happiness?” Pain and pleasure are inextricably linked. The pleasure would
not exist, or least be recognized, if it were not for pain.—Philip Yancey
【Purpose of Pain】Pain can serve a
definite purpose in our lives.
Dr.
Paul Brand of
【Purpose of Pain】Pain insists upon
being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our
conscience, and shouts in our pain. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf
world.—C.S. Lewis
【Suffering】A Christian is
like a tea bag-not much good until it has gone through hot water.
【Suffering】If God had told
me some time ago that he was about to make me happy as I could be in this
world, and then had told me that he should begin by crippling me in arm or
limb, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have
thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing his purpose. And yet, how is
his wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a
closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you
wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps,
and then throwing open the shutter to let in the light of heaven.—Samuel
Rutherford
【Reason for Suffering】Suffering can do
several things in the life of a believer. First, it can “burn out the dross,”
or purify us and lead us to greater holiness of life. But it can also “burn in
the promises,” or lead us to a closer dependence on God and his faithful
promises to us. Burn it will-but look also at what the burning is for.
【Reason for Suffering】There are many
benefits in knowing a foreign language. One of the chief benefits lies in the
increased ability to understand and be understood. If a person knows only one
language, he is tempted to think that everything he communicates is understood.
However, if forced to translate an idea into another language, he must consider
various possible words to use and their shades of meaning as well as all of the
other elements of the language. This effort opens up a door, allowing him to
communicate with many new people.
Suffering
is like knowing a foreign language, since things that one usually takes for
granted in a normal flow of life must be thought through in new ways in a time
of suffering. For those who have lived with suffering, a door of ministry is
opened wide to a world of hurting people.
【Reason for Suffering】The Weaver
My
life is but a weaving between my Lord and me,
I
cannot choose the colors he worketh steadily.
Oft
times he waveth sorrow and I in foolish pride
Forget
he sees the upper and I the underside.
The
dark threads are as needful in the weaver’s skillful hand
As
the threads of gold and silver in the pattern he has planned.
Not
till the loom is silent and the shuttle cease to fly
Shall
God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.
【Reason for Suffering】Men seek an
explanation of suffering in cause and effect. They look backward for a
connection between prior sin and present suffering. The Bible looks forward in
hope and seeks explanations, not so much in origins as in goals. The purpose of
suffering is seen, not in its cause, but in its results. The man (in John 9:3)
was born blind so that the works of God could be displayed in him. –Francis I.
【Reason for Suffering】The following
quotation is from a Christian man who has been an invalid all his life, one of
those lonely and obscure people who live in constant pain, who do not know what
it means to be able to use their physical body in any way without pain and
suffering:
“Loneliness
is not a thing of itself, not an evil sent to rob us of the joys of life.
Loneliness, loss, pain, sorrow, these are disciplines, God’s gifts to drive us
to his very heart, to increase our capacity for him, to sharpen our
sensitivities and understanding, to temper our spiritual lives so that they may
become channels of his mercy to others and so bear fruit for his kingdom. But
these disciplines must be seized upon and used, not thwarted. They must not be
seen as excuses for living in the shadow of half-lives, but as messengers,
however painful, to bring our souls into vital contact with the living God,
that our lives may be filled to overflowing with himself in ways that may,
perhaps, be impossible to those who know less of life’s darkness.”
【Reason for Suffering】In the midst of the movie The Hiding
Place, there is a scene set in the Ravensbruck concentration camp in
Germany. Corrie ten Boom and her sister, Betsy, are there, along with ten
thousand other women, in horrible, degrading, hideous conditions. They are
gathered with some of the women in the barracks in the midst of the beds, cold
and hungry and lice-ridden, and Betsy is leading a Bible class. One of the
other women calls out derisively from her bunk and mocks their worship of God. They
fall into conversation, and this woman says what so frequently is flung at
Christians: “If your God is such a good God, why does he allow this kind of
suffering?” Dramatically she tears off the bandages and old rags that bind her
hands, displaying her broken, mangled fingers and says, “I’m the first
violinist of the symphony orchestra. Did you God will this?”
For
a moment no one answers. Then Corrie ten Boom steps to the side of her sister
and says, “We can’t answer that question. All we know is that our God came to
this earth, and became one of us, and he suffered with us and was crucified and
died. And that he did it for love.”
【Response to Suffering】Several years ago, there was a man going
through great physical problems and one of his legs had to be amputated. That
did not arrest the course of his disease, and he ultimately died because of it.
Just a few days before the man’s death, a minister visited him in the hospital,
and the patient said something that perfectly expresses what “rejoicing in suffering”
means to a Christian: “I never would have chosen one of the trails that I’ve
gone through, but I wouldn’t have missed any of them for the world!”
This
man had an awareness that his suffering was something of value. He wouldn’t
have missed it! He wouldn’t have chosen it either! That is rejoicing in
suffering.
【Response to Suffering】An unknown author has written these very
appropriate words about suffering:
“It
is well that we should think, sometimes, of the Upper Room, and of the Last
Supper, and of His soul ‘exceeding sorrowful unto death’; of Gethsemane, the
deep shadow of the olive trees, his loneliness, prayers, and disappointment
with his disciples, his bloody sweat; the traitor’s kiss, the binding, the blow
in the face, the spitting, the buffeting, the mocking, the scourging, the crown
of thorns, the smiting; the sorrowful way, and burdensome cross, the exhaustion
and collapse; the stripping, the impaling, the jeers of his foes, the flight of
his friends; the hours on the cross, the darkness, his being forsaken of God;
his thirst, and the end.
【Response to Suffering】You may explain to a child all the medical
reasons why he must have a shot in the arm, but when the nurse gets ready to
plunge that needle into his arm, he runs to Mommy. Comfort comes not in always
knowing the reason why, but in knowing the comforter.
【Response to Suffering】It is clear from Scripture that”rejocing
in suffering” is not simply stoicism. It is not simply a grin-and-bear-it
attitude of tough-it-out-and-see-how-much-you-can-take, or
just-hang-in-there-until-it’s-over-and-don’t-let-anything-get-you-down, or
keep0-a-stiff-upper-lip. Many people feel that if they do this, they are
obeying God and “rejoicing in suffering.” But they are not.