Can You Give Me a Reason for Suffering?

Thursday, October 27, 2022

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.  He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others.  When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.  2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Paul must have had a reason for praising God in the middle of suffering.  Writing a letter to the church folk at Corinth, that reason for his suffering (and theirs) became transparently necessary to human living, and the cause of Christ.  That may sound like a circular argument without reason…suffering brings God’s comfort, and God’s comforting allows us to bear pain…but even if it appears circular, it is backed-up by sound theological understanding. 

The God-reason behind suffering has to do with living in a fallen world, in which there is no escape from suffering.  God did not create suffering to torture us, or just because we’re evil, and we need to be punished.  Rather, it is because of sin’s nature, and therefore we, in our sin nature, are prone to wander, suffer, and feel the pain of our folly.  We live in relationship with the other 7 billion souls on this planet, and so we are also going to suffer when we’ve not actually done something to deserve the pain.  Let’s face it, you didn’t get the Corona Virus because you stole a dollar from your Mom’s purse, and you don’t get the flu because you had an impure thought.  These are part of living in proximity to those who have the illness.  Sometimes we’re the winshield, and sometimes we’re the bug…stuff happens!

If suffering is unavoidable (and we know that to be true, despite unceasing human attempts to avoid pain at all costs, and at the expense of relationship, rest, fortune, or even reputation), well, what are we to make of God’s part in allowing pain?  Is it just a reminder of how bad we are?  Is it to teach us to behave?  And, if it’s just a capricious thing God does, because God can do it…why would Paul praise a God like that?

Well, lots of questions to be answered; most of the answers are unsatisfactory when your foot is killing you with every step, or your heart is failing, or your spouse just walked out on you, for what he said is the end.  Can you give me any reason or purpose for that suffering, which will give me even the slightest hope of continuing to live with purpose?  I mean, what’s the sense, if there’s no purpose?

The purpose in our suffering is often known only to God.  Paul had wrestled (like Job wrestled) with his thorn in the flesh[1] only to have God tell him he would have to wrestle with it longer…God’s grace would have to suffice for now.  History tells us Paul finally came to terms with his suffering and pain, and even death.  In Paul’s deep reasoning and understanding of God with us, and our need for His presence and purpose, and even our need for suffering, Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians gave the answer in a deeply-personal testimony of God’s answer to our dilemma with pain and suffering:

Oh, what a miserable person I am!  Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?  Thank God!  The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Romans 7:24-25a

For You Today

In Paul’s answer about being freed in Jesus Christ, he also points to his former letter to the Corinthians, where he beautifully describes the purpose for the whole process:  Just as Christ came to heal us in our pain of sin-sickness, we, in our suffering, fulfill His ministry to comfort and heal others.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

       Suffering   and   When Pain Speaks

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] See 2 Corinthians 12

Surrendering the Spots

[i]

Thursday, February 21, 2019

Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.  So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death.  But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.  For the sinful nature is always hostile to God.  It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will.  That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.  Romans 8:5-8(NLT)

For most of my life I have struggled with the issue of surrendering my will.  As I look back over the sermons preached since 1978 there is a pattern that is clear.  No matter where the sermon starts, it always finds its way to whether the leopard will consent to surrendering his spots.  Will I allow my will to be subordinated to that of God?  And, will I live the surrendered life willingly or grudgingly?  I certainly can’t compare my life with someone like the Apostle Paul, but this is the same issue with which he grappled:

So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good.  The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.  I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it.  Instead, I do what I hate.  Romans 7:14-15(NLT)

In as simple an illustration that is common to all who do such silliness as make New Year’s resolutions (of which I am chief), New Year’s Day always sets me up for a fall. 

I seize the moment of resolution, which may have to do with less chocolate, more walking, and no fretting.  However, by about 3:00 that afternoon, the refrigerator and couch are calling my name in headline, BIG, BOLD, RED letters!  And I fret myself to a frenzy, once the chips and Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups™ are gone.

So, today’s devotion is for anyone who’s ever suffered a lost night’s sleep, or severe indigestion due to choking on broken resolutions, not those promises that are superficial, like overeating, or lack of exercise…but for breaking your resolve to be the kind of person God would want to hang-out with…it’s time to relax.  Really?

Yes…relax.  If it were not possible to have a healthy, sustainable, and victorious, overcoming lifestyle, God would not have gone through so much trouble to say it is possible.

For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.  1 John 5:4(NLT)

As the old saying suggests, no self-respecting leopard is ever going to change his spots.  Those spots have been with him a long time; and, besides, he’s a leopard, and leopards always have spots.

The same is true with humans; our spots are our tendency to be wretched.  And there is no way to change or delete that tendency.  Just look at the news – the tendency towards evil screams in 24-hour cycles of shootings, war, madness, cruelty, with the endless list of how we shake our fists at the God who created us.

John Newton understood this inability to shed our spots, that human and evil nature which Paul said made him a wretched man; Newton wrote[ii] that God’s grace had to save a wretch like [him]; like me.

But God not only identifies this problem…our problem…He has done something about it.  God had Paul write:

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Romans 7:24-25(KJV)

For You Today

Are you tired of those spots?  The surrendered life awaits.  Surrender you to Him; He will deal with the spots the way you can’t.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:  via Pixabay.com

[ii] Amazing Grace

Unintended Harvest

[1]   

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  I want to do what is right, but I can’t.  I want to do what is good, but I don’t.  I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.  Romans 7:18-19 (NLT)

This Scripture is Paul’s woeful description of the power sin holds over a person.  The application for the life of a believer/follower of Jesus Christ is pretty clear: 

If you say “yes” long enough to sin and 

selfishness, there comes a time when you 

will NOT BE ABLE to say “yes” to God. 

When Elizabeth and I first moved to our current home, 15 years ago, I discovered some wild grapevines in the back yard.  They were wrapped around a very large pine tree; well, it used to be a pine tree - now it’s a pile of decomposing termite food…dead! 

The ancient tree in my back yard was immense; it was about 36” in diameter; the vine was about 4” in diameter.  How could something so small take down something so large?  Well, you do recall David and Goliath, don’t you?  For every giant there is a little slingshot!

Now, those vines would have been easy to pull out by the root a few years prior, but by the time I saw them they were so embedded in the tree stem, it was impossible. 

Those grapevines are a vivid metaphor of sin in a Christian’s life. 

When sin, particularly selfishness, is entertained within, at first it will be much like a young grapevine, no bigger than a hair.  You can train it, use it to decorate your life and pretty much control it.  You’re still in the driver’s seat (or so you think!).

But the Scriptures also inform us that sin’s pleasures are but for a season. ^{(Hebrews 11:25)}  Sooner or later the unintended harvest of this kind of vine becomes a force in you that you won't be able to defeat! 

If you indulge selfishness long enough you cultivate a crop of loneliness and spiritual blindness that will strangle any possibilities of generosity and kindness.  The vine of sin grows stronger; you, the real you, the one created in the image of God, the “you” of generosity and vitality – you shrivel and die.

As Paul lamented, you can get to the place where you want to do right, but cannot.

Like my back yard grapevine, the process is insidious, growing and wrapping itself around every part of your life, until the host is replaced by the vine alone.  There is little left of the original “you” – just a pile of spiritual sawdust!

Now all that sounds pretty dismal; it seems like you’re doomed if you slip-up.  Paul’s statements sound ominous and final. 

But he doesn’t leave us dangling like the hangman; listen to the end of Paul’s chapter:

Oh, what a miserable person I am!  Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?  Thank God!  The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Romans 7:24-25 (NLT)

Followers of Jesus have blessed hope to proclaim – Christ is stronger than our sin.

For You Today

Here’s a great practice for any believer – check the base of your life’s tree every day for seeds of rebellion and selfishness. 

Pull ‘em out while they’re small!

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[1] Title Image: By Aquamelli, via Wikimedia Commons