At the end of the message I mentioned one thing we can learn from suffering and that is how to walk by faith and not by sight. A second thing we can learn from suffering is what we are trusting in. We suffer when things we need in our life for love, security, purpose, or significance is threatened.
A great example of this is what happens within marriage. When a guy gets stressed out over the family finances it is usually the wife who becomes strong and assures him things are going to be okay. The guy is a mess but the wife is calm. However, when the kids go awry it really affects the wife. She’s a mess and it is usually her husband who becomes strong and reassures her that the kids will come around ultimately. They will be okay.
We suffer when the things we look to for purpose, meaning and significance are threatened. Whatever we base our life on, what drives us, whatever we live for when it is threatened or taken away we fall apart. So when suffering comes the question you need to ask yourself is not “Why is this happening to me?” but “Why is this upsetting me? Why am I coming unglued? Why is my spouse calm and I’m a mess? Why are others handling it better than I am?”
Identify it and then lean less and less on it for your hope and security and lean more heavily on the Lord. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t show concern. You should and take steps to, in the case of your finances, learn to live within your means. In the case of your children. help where you are able if they ask for your help. At the same time, don’t turn either into an idol, something you need to feel good. Trust in God for everything. He can’t be taken away. He won’t let you down. Nor does trusting in him enslave you. He will liberate you from all your worries.
There are other things we can learn from suffering. What have you learned?
20 Comments on “The Problem of Pain”
I loved your sermon! I brought my daughter and it touched her deeply. God’s like that, isn’t he? My daughter is pregnant with #3, she is already struggling with the two she has, 5 and 12 months. She is struggling with her sobriety from drugs and alcohol and her marriage appears to be very much over. But the words we heard today were of Faith and Hope. What is meant for evil God will turn around for His good. God’s promises are real. Thank you for sharing God’s word.
Blessings.
Thank you for your kind words. I keep praying for your kids. It’ll be a long, bumpy road back but I’ve known many who made it and they are living a good life. The Executive Director of the Gospel Mission, if you look at him you’d think, “Here is a guy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.” He had a nice family, a wife, a nice home, etc. But at one time he was homeless and an addict holding those cardboard signs you see everywhere. But he made it back with God’s help. Tell Kayla she can make it back. One day she will look back on her life and be amazed by how far she’s come. He addiction will seem as if a distant dream (More like nightmare) that she can barely remember!
Maybe one day I will write a book based on this perfect writing. Great job really.
נערות ליווי
I liked the note you wrote in the blog so I listened to the sermon. I liked the section on Job, especially when God spoke to the friends saying that you should not speak for God. The angel in Esdras 2 had a bit to say on that topic also.
I am troubled by yours and the typical vision of suffering. First let me say that I do not dismiss other peoples suffering because it is theirs and theirs alone. But I can speak for the events of my own life and for me suffering is: fear of the future, anger/hate of events of the past, and ungratefulness for the present. When I suffer these are the reasons why I suffer and they are also my sins.
The message I hear from God is this: Trust God and be grateful; and he will give me hope for the future and forgiveness of the past. With hope, forgiveness and thankfulness I am able to share in God’s love. With God’s love in my soul, joy lives in my heart. I am a child of God: what possible insignificant event could leave even the tiniest hint of a shadow over that idea? The answer is nothing – what good is it to gain the whole world and not be a child of God?
It is certain that some well-meaning person (the disciples perhaps) will say but what about the blind man surely he suffers. And Jesus said something like, “Who are you to diminish this man’s value? He is a child of God.” And as Julian of Norwich said, “God loved him before he made him; and his love has never diminished and never shall.”
Jesus came to take away all of the sins of the world and thus take away all of the suffering. It seems to me that to believe the first is to believe the second.
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