Suffering

Suffering… our lives are full of it. It comes in many shapes and forms. I believe there are different types of suffering, we suffer from the sins of others, we suffer from our own sin, we suffer from sickness and disease, and we suffer from environmental issues. See our world is broken, but we refuse to see and acknowledge that. We feel the effects of it, but we think we can fix it. And we try, for the last thousands of years we have tried. We mainly see this by relying on governments, today in the US we think the government should define marriage, define what a family is, pay for our healthcare, pay for our education, protect us, fix our roads and bridge… Another way we try is by blaming religion, so we try to completely remove that from society. Whole nations have tried this, only for it to end in udder disaster. So then we think the answer is tolerance, no one judge anybody. Whats right for you is right for me, of course we know that this attitude doesn’t work either, we see this attitude in the American society today. All this creates is an atmosphere were everyone is talking and no one is listening. I know! Education, if everybody would just go to school, would learn to read, would learn we would all make good choices. Well this was tried during the age of Enlightenment….that was a couple hundred years, and look were we are today. Two world wars, the detention of an atomic bomb, periods of unrest and spouts of warfare that ends with tens of thousands dying, and much more left homeless. See even with all of history behind us we still make the same choices and decisions that people have been making for thousands of years, and we will still continue to do so. Why? because we are broken. But we don’t want to acknowledge that, because if we do, then we have to acknowledge that there is nothing we can do to fix ourself. This flies in the face of our pride, our self reliance, our independence. We absolutely hate the fact that there is nothing we can do. Our pride, our self reliance, our independence, the lies we believe, we are so blinded that the only way to show us, is to break the only thing we hold on to. The only way to do that is to suffer, because it is through suffering God can show us, God can bring us to a point where we have to acknowledge that He is the only one that can save, He is the only one that redeems, He is the only one that can fix the broken heart. Paul in 2 Corinthains 1 talks about this. They were pressed on every side to the point of wanting to die. Why? so they would rely on God and not themself. Our purpose here on earth is to glorify God. But we are so busy trying to steal His glory that the only way to get through to our thick skulls is to bring us to the point of wanted to die. Only then, when everything has been stripped away can we see God for who He is, can we see His power and majesty, can we see our sin and understand what Jesus has done for us. This is what God uses pictures like clay, or gold and silver, how it its raw form it isn’t beautiful. You wouldn’t even recognize it for the precious metal that it is. It needs to go through fire over and over again to remove the impurities that are mixed in with the metal. This is why we have hard times, so that God can show us the impurities in our lives and remove them. We often get mad at God for allowing things to happen to us. But God sees and understands much more then what we ever could, He knows how these devastating events in our lives will produce something so beautiful and so precious that it is worth the pain. But we must be willing to learn, be open to the voice of God showing us where we need Him. This is love. He could have left us in our broken blind state. But He chose to come down, and show us that through him we can have peace, we can be made whole, we can be made new. How awesome and majestic is our God!! How wonderful are His ways!!!! Blessed be His name forever and ever Amen.