To suffer or not to suffer, that is not the question!

If you expect to get through life without suffering, good luck. The Apostle Peter puts it this way “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you” (1 Peter 4:12). We suffer because of what we have done, we suffer because of what others have done, and sometimes our suffering comes from out of the blue without apparent rhyme or reason. But whatever sooner or later, we all seem to find ourselves suffering. Indeed the “rain falls on the just and the unjust”.

What is certain (at least in my mind) is that if there is no heaven and hell then God is not just. Some will say that “well heaven and hell are here on earth”, and while I know what they mean, this cannot be right (again if God is just and He is). I say this because the wicked seem to get away with murder, sometimes quite literally. And this in fact is part of our suffering, knowing that the wicked do seem to get away with it (at least in the here and now)! The question then is not if we will suffer, but how we will deal with it.

The quotation from 1st Peter above implies that we should even expect to suffer. The same reference confirms the truth of the saying “these things are sent to try us”. My response to this is “They do, they do try us!” And this brings me back to my perhaps becoming over worn phrase “these things are crossroads”. Will we allow ourselves to become offended with God and/or the perpetrators of our pain, or will we deal with suffering the way that Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, dealt with them? He is, after all, our example.

Over the weekend I watched the awesome movie “Courageous”. The main character looses his daughter to an accident involving a drunk driver. The pastor asks him what will he choose. Will he choose to be angry that he is denied the good times he would have had with his daughter, or be thankful for the memories of the good times he did have? What would you choose? You would have to wrestle with that (at least I would), but in the end if we understood how things work, we would see that we were being offered the choice of life or death. Bitterness is like root that springs up and chokes off life, and defiles us and those we love (Hebrews 12:15). We need His help (I do) to choose His ways.

The question again then, is not if we will suffer, for this is certain. The question is how we will respond to the suffering, to the injustices that befall us, and to the consequences of our own choices.

Prayer: Father help me to respond to the things that so easily offend, by choosing life. Help me to understand that You suffered for us and with us (next day's post).