Christian pain and suffering
Stacy at Christian Persecution Blog has an excellent article today called If your outlook is bad, then look up. It especially speaks to me because my life has been full of turmoil and upheaval lately. My wife and I sat down last week, counted things up, and found that between the two of us, we had had 5 surgeries, 4 emergency room visits, and a number of most unpleasant and painful office procedures within the past 2 years. She has also lost 2 immediate family members in the past 2-1/2 years and I have had 2 job changes. Life seems to have been one disaster after the other and we have often wondered why God is allowing us to go through all of these trials.
The one thing that we are certain of us is that the Lord will be faithful to us. We won't necessarily have a life free of disease, poverty, and pain here on earth but we will have a peace that surpasses all understanding. We've also found that God has used some of our troubles over the past couple of years to be a blessing to others. Any of our suffering (and I want to stress that our suffering doesn't even compare with that of many people in the world) will be worth every bit of it if we find in heaven that someone came to know God through seeing how we responded to adversity.
Some Christians will be blessed here on earth with health and riches while others will not. God is not some galactic robot who dishes out blessings when we give him compliments. He has our eternity in mind and our time here is nothing but a fleeting moment in comparison. As Stacy wrote in the article:
A Christian is not privileged with a certain set of circumstances. Nice home. Perfect family. Good health. No, a Christian is a person with a certain attitude toward any and all circumstances. A person’s attitude makes the difference, regardless of circumstances. A heavenly attitude focuses on God’s presence amid trials. Fixating on our hardships distracts us from a heavenly outlook. We feel burdened. Depressed. Hopeless. In contrast, a godly outlook on our troubles brings confidence that God is at work. We relax in God’s presence, waiting to see how he will work out our concerns. Are you undergoing a trial right now? Where are you focused? Ask God to redirect your energies so you can look beyond your troubles and feel his presence near you.
Stacy is right. When times are tough we need to focus on God and stand firm on his promises. He is our rock and our salvation, our savior and our friend, our cleft in the rock and our strong fortress. Jesus handled our sufferings for us on the cross and though we may be called to suffer with him, he won't ever allow us to suffer without him.
Update: Stacy let me know that the quote above is taken from the book Extreme Devotion, by The Voice of the Martyrs.
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Comments
Thanks for the link. I just want to clarify that I did not write that piece, it’s from the book Extreme Devotion.
Posted by: Stacy L Harp | March 9, 2006 04:16 PM