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Suffering in this Life

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Marlene:
I am like you Lauriellen. I just want God's will . I know he loves me and will be just. Just, because we want him to heal someone does not mean it is his plan. Just, because we want something, does not mean it is good for us. I just cling on him to help me endure. God is going to do what is best, even if we don't think it is. Sometime, this will all make sense to us. For sure it keeps us humble.

In His Love,
Marlene

Pax Vobiscum:


Oh, it's been MUCH too long....!

Reconciling human suffering and God is very difficult.  Here are a couple of points to lob out there....

A very old smart guy (16th or 17th century) named Leibniz used the term theodicy to refer to this seeming paradox:  God is omnipotent.  God is love.  There is innocent suffering. 

It appears paradoxical that these three things can coexist.

Another point to ponder is from Epicurus who said, "Is God willing to prevent evil but not able?  The he is impotent.  Is He able but not willing?  Then he is malevolent.  Is He both able and willing?  Whence then, evil?"

To explore Biblical constructs, you will find suffering as a consequence of sin, suffering as a lesson about sin, and even suffering of many innocents for various reasons, even sport!

God and suffering becomes as circular as God and free-will.  Ray was explaining the problem lies in our perception of "good" and "not-good."  I would challenge you to consider the terms "innocent" and "not innocent."  Best Biblical advice I have is to check Ecclesiastes and deal with suffering rather than try and understand it.  Your sanity will thank you.

Good Luck,

Pax

Akira329:

--- Quote from: lauriellen on October 11, 2009, 12:35:20 PM ---as i said in my first email, i do fully trust God, even thought He slay me, i will trust Him.....even though i do not understand His methods, i will trust Him....
it is hard for me to pray for the protection or healing of my family and friends anymore, because i know that i may be praying against His will, so i pray for His will to be done, and the strength to endure....that is one of the scriptures that makes perfect sense to me...."he who endures to the end shall be saved".
...because this life is like an endurance race, and sometimes i feel all i (and others) are doing is enduring.
everyone agrees that correction and discipline, done in the "right" way are good things,....but even in our earthy state, we recognize the difference between discipline and abuse.  if any parent is convicted of beating, raping or otherwise abusing their child, the courts take the child away and put the parent in jail.  the parent is considered the worst kind of criminal.  if a woman is battered and abused by her husband, he can go to jail, and society thinks the woman would be insane not to remove herself from that relationship.  our society puts rapists, murderers, abusers of all kinds in jail and consider them sick individuals for doing these things. i accept a certain amount of correction and discipline, but i think we all can honestly say that there are some things in life that humans suffer that are so unspeakable, so horrific, that it defies our ability to understand.(an essay my grandfather wrote of his experiences in the Korean war and the Bataan death march are a good example...most can not read it without breaking  down into tears it is so horrible).   i am in no way  complaining against God, who is soveriegn, and does not owe me or anyone else any kind of explaination of what He chooses to do, i just want to UNDERSTAND Him, so that i can love Him, purely and with my WHOLE heart.  i don't want a little shadow in the corner of my heart always there saying "how could You do this? if you REALLY loved me, you wouldn't make us suffer so."
i realize that i may never have this understanding in this lifetime....but i will keep searching and groping for Him to fully reveal Himself to me. one of my deepest desires is to help others love and trust in Gods mercy, to help others see that they can  lean on Him in times of trouble, i want everyone to see that He only is our source of hope and strength...but how can i do this if i myself have any shadow of doubt?
thank you for letting me vent,
lauriellen

--- End quote ---

Mat 14:29  And he said, Come. And Peter went down from the boat, and walked upon the waters to come to Jesus.
Mat 14:30  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me.
Mat 14:31  And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and took hold of him, and saith unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

Job 4:17  Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?

Job 21:22  Shall any teach God knowledge? seeing he judgeth those that are high.

Here is an email from Ray that may also help in further understanding how and why God operates the way he does.
http://bible-truths.com/email2.htm#suffer
http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php?topic=224.msg1868#msg1868

Trust in God
Antaiwan

Dave in Tenn:
Hi lauriellen.

When I stopped believing in Hell by the Grace of God, it was more of an event than a process.  It happened, literally, overnight.  That brought tremendous joy, renewed faith, and a return to love for God that had been absent for a long, long time.  What has followed in studying and thinking about what is to follow this vapor of an existence has not happened overnight, but is a process which continues and will continue until we're not looking at or through a glass, darkly.

If I still believed in the "Heaven" I grew up believing in--instantaneous reward and eternal bliss--a Holy retirement in paradise--where the saints all sing and marvel at them streets of gold, glory hallelujah clap on the ones and threes--then it would be much harder to understand greater evils which have been visited on those 'less fortunate' than me.  I've never been murdered, tortured, suffered horribly for even a short period of time.  My life has been a mix of reasonably good times and reasonably bad times--nothing in either case that would warrant writing a book anybody else would want to read.  It's hard to reconcile wars and Holocaust as being necessary for us to twiddle away the eons in some sort of holy forgetful fog.

But that's NOT what this whole thing is about.  And that's not how this whole thing ends.  What it IS about and how it ends, I can't tell you.  Seems whenever the scripture starts to talk about it, the writers stop themselves, because even they, under the influence of the Spirit and having received visions beyond most (or all) of us regarding it, can't begin to describe what they know except by admitting/declaring that they can't describe it.  It's been for me to contemplate the end.  And when we do properly, knowing that ALL this evil is preface to a greater end, and that the end justifies the means whereby God is working...just as He's told us...then our burden on this yoke of fellowship of His sufferings we've endured and witnessesed--and even caused--is lightened.

Regarding one of your other points, much of the suffering I have done, has been MY FAULT through choices I've made, even though I know that these choices were caused ultimately by God for my benefit.  In fact, I have suffered very little as an innocent.  One benefit is to learn HARD that I am a sinner by nature, and by practice.  If we don't learn this, then we are not part of the promise.  Jesus came to save sinners.  If we don't know we are sinners, then we might as well say He didn't come to save us.  Isn't that what He said to the Pharisees, in fact?  

If we confess our sins...He is faithful and just...

Hang in there.



  

9440geoff:
Whenever I think about and pray about suffering so as to try to understand it better, I usually end up with the thought in my head that we measure everthing in this life in time. i.e. if we have suffered ALL our lives with something or for a number of years, or even as little as a few days. I find it hard to have even a short conversation without mentioning a period of time; but one day we are going to made incorruptible and although I can't understand now exactly what this means, I have a feeling that we won't measure things in periods of time, and all what is happening now will seem like "a drop in the ocean."

Geoff

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