Life is not all made up of pleasant pastures and cooling streams. Trial and disappointment can overtake us at anytime; and if privation comes; we are sometimes brought into trying places.
Conscience-stricken, we reason that we must have walked far away from God, that if we had walked with Him, we should not have suffered so. Doubt and despondency crowd into our hearts, and we say, The Lord has failed us. But, God is still there despite any tragedy you may be experiencing.
But why does God allow us to suffer?
That “why” question is not a new one. The “problem of pain,” as Christian scholar, C.S. Lewis, once called it, is atheism’s most potent weapon against the Christian faith.
God cannot love us; if He did He would remove the difficulties from our path
Our human intellects and notions of fairness reject the apparent contradiction between a loving God and a world of pain. Therefore, the only way to reconcile this issue is to view the world from God’s perspective. But, the only way to even begin to understand God’s perspective is to read His Word, the Bible. Because God does not always bring us to pleasant places. If He did, in our self-sufficiency we would forget that He is our helper. He longs to manifest Himself to us, and to reveal the abundant supplies at our disposal, and He permits trial and disappointment to come to us that we may realize our helplessness, and learn to call upon Him for aid.
What should be our attitude toward suffering?
First, it should be one of worship. We ought to say,
“O God, I believe You are the great and mighty God. I don’t understand all the things that are happening in my life, but, O God, I trust in You.”
Remember God can cause cooling streams to flow from the flinty rock.
We shall never know until we are face to face with God, when we shall see as we are seen and know as we are known, how many burdens He has borne for us, and how many burdens He would have been glad to bear if with childlike faith we had brought them to Him.
God’s love is revealed in all His dealings with His people; and with clear, unclouded eyes, in adversity, in sickness, in disappointment, and in the trial we are to behold the light of His glory in the face of Christ and trust to His guiding hand. But too often we grieve His heart by our unbelief.
‘You can never learn that Christ is all you need, until Christ is all you have’
God loves His children, and He longs to see them overcoming the discouragement with which Satan would overpower them. Do not give way to unbelief. Do not magnify your difficulties. May we be people who fight spiritual amnesia with God-given means of remembrance.
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus – Philippians 3:14
Suffering is a state of this fallen world. However, the complete message of the Bible is that God has His plan for redemption all worked out. Those who put their faith in Jesus Christ have a hope of eternity with God in a place where there is no more suffering or evil.
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Everyone deals with doubt. It is part of being human. I would suggest that it is a sign of a HEALTHY human. Does a sociopath doubt his actions or is he so fully self-confident in his “rightness” that he is incapable of doubting the appropriateness of his behavior?
So it is ok to doubt. Doubt causes healthy humans to reflect on our current behavior and beliefs and to possibly adjust those behaviors and beliefs in light of new evidence which indicates they are wrong.
So I don’t think it is wrong at all to doubt the justice of God when we see so much suffering, not just in our own lives, but in the lives of billions of other human beings in the world (let alone the billions of suffering animals). Is there really any good reason for why a good, just God would allow this kind of massive, horrific suffering? If your answer is “sin”, ask yourself this question: Is there any sin that my child would commit that would cause me to allow him (or her) to die a slow painful death due to starvation, thirst, disease, or violent abuse—including rape and murder?
I don’t think we would. And I don’t think we would accept ANY excuse for this behavior in another parent.
So we do we excuse God for this behavior?
Thanks for taking the time to leave a message God Bless and have a wonderful week.
Thanks for taking the time to leave a message God Bless and have a wonderful week.
Thanks for taking the time to leave a message God Bless and have a wonderful week.
Thanks for taking the time to leave a message God Bless and have a wonderful week.
One thing building a close personal relationship with my wife has taught me is that doubt and unbelief have no place in our relationship. We do not always agree, or see eye-to-eye about certain things; but we never doubt each others intent or motivation. I have come to understand that doubt and unbelief are by-products of religion when the prescribed outcome did not happen. When you know someone, doubt and unbelief do not enter the picture. When you know about someone through stories about them, you can choose to belief or disbelieve.
Truly, God is the Father of Mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us so that we can comfort others, with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. (2 Cor. 1) Thanks so much for sharing your heart with us. We all need to be reminded of God’s faithfulness.
Eve created from Adam’s Vertebra
Three divine trinary concepts from the Ribs-Bone of Adam
John 19:35, (Psalm 34:20)
ὈÃĀοῦν οὠÃÆ’Ã…νÄÃÂιβήÃεÄαι αá½ÂÄοῦ.
A bone of him shall not be broken.
Genesis 2:21,22 “He (God, on the Sixth Day before the Sabbath) took one of his (Adam, man’s,) ribs [צלע – ‘tsela’ Plural], and closed up [Buried] the flesh instead thereof.” (Acts 2:26-28; 13:32-38 )
‘Ribs’ actually are one left and right laterally extended bone-structure. The spine is the central ‘bone’- ‘etsem’ part into and out of which the two ‘ribs-bone’- ‘tsela’, צלע, laterally protrude.
‘Bone’- ‘etsem’, therefore, is the pivotal, supporting, middle ‘BONE-’ part: “as such, bone”, and “in essence, bone”, “bone-of-strength” and “support-bone” to a THREE-PART-SRUCTURE called, צלע – ‘tsela’, the ternary Plural for “ribs-bone”, in Genesis 2:21,22.
This linguistic phenomenon of a THREE-part “ribs-bone” of the COMPLETE -ternary Plural- “ribs-bone” structure, is also, ‘particularly’ / ‘essentially’, “BONE”- ‘etsem’, found in the “three days thick darkness” of the Passover-of-Yahweh “BONE-DAY” Scriptures, where all “three days” of indistinguishable “three days thick darkness”, are dated…[*]
…in Exodus 12, “the fourteenth day of the First Month the Selfsame Whole Day BONE DAY”- ‘etsem yom’ Singular.
The symbolism of the “ribs-bone” – צלע – ‘tsela’, Plural, of Genesis 2:21-22, thus consists in a THREE parts pluralism of the “WHOLE-BONE” structure of the “WHOLE ribs-pair” WITH its “MIDDLE/CENTRAL”, “one”, “selfsame”, “solid”, “strong”, “essential”, “supporting”, “upholding”, “WHOLE”, “BONE”, the vertebra “bone”- ‘etsem’, out of which God “formed the woman”.
Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let US (God TRI-UNE), make man (Singular) in OUR image after OUR LIKENESS, and let THEM (Plural) have dominion; 27So God created1 man in HIS IMAGE; in the image of GOD (TRI-UNE), created2 He him (Singular): male AND female created3 He them (Plural).”–“Let us make man in our (“God-Is-Spirit”) image after OUR (spiritual) LIKENESS, and let them have (spiritual) dominion; 27So GOD (TRI-UNE) created1 man (formed man of the dust of the ground) in his (spiritual) image; in the image of GOD (who “is Spirit”,) created2 He him”: “God breathed into his nostrils the (physical) breath of life; thus, male AND female, created3 He them, and man (man and woman), became a living SOUL (and flesh unity).” “And they, shall be, one, flesh.” Genesis 2:24; 3:19
The Power, might, strength, dependableness and stableness, qualities of “BONE”- ‘etsem’ [Hebrew root ‘ts’ in צלע- ‘tsela’ Genesis 2:21,22 and in every occurrence of “BONE-Day”- ‘etsem yom’], consist then in the Oneness of and in the Plurality of the Ternary “Power”- “Bone-Strength” of “God” Elohim, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
God, Elohim, The Almighty, “formed” (‘improvised’ / ‘improved’) man, “Adam”, “from the ground of the earth” which God had, created, from… nothing! Adam already was the Almighty’s “work” or “making”, or “formation” and “improvement” on “his own works”. But Eve, “God made from the pivotal three-in-one ribs-BONE-of-STRENGTH” from the “man”, Adam. “God took from man” the “WHOLE-bone”, the “ONE” vertebra in its entirety צלע- ‘tsela’- “ribs-BONE”– a “WHOLE” three parts plurality. From “ONE” of Adam’s intact vertebrae, God made Eve– made her from the man whom God had already made “a living soul” by the earthly “breath of life He breathed into his nostrils”. What a vast “improvement” is the wife of the man whom God from “his own works He had made”, “created”, “formed” and “improved”! Because, says
Genesis 2:18, “Yahweh Elohim [The I-AM-WE], the LORD GOD, had said [in the Eternal Council of the Full Fellowship of the Trinity], It is not good that the man [Yahweh Elohim willed to make] should be alone, “I” [Yahweh Elohim The I-AM-WE, the Tri-Une Almighty GOD, Father, Son and Holy Spirit], will make him an help meet for him” (…like We have and like We are in the Full Fellowship of Our Own Being and Council) of which Paul wrote, saying,
Ephesians 5:32, 30 Ephesians 5:32, 30
“This is a great mystery concerning CHRIST, and the Church.” For like Eve of Adam, “we are members of his (Christ, the Man Jesus’ body), of his flesh, of his BONES”, “bones indeed”, of which none were “broken” to create Eve, “the mother of all the living” Genesis 3:20, and of which none were “broken” to redeem man through the “Sacrifice of Himself.” Hebrews 9:26.
“God”, the Father’s, Love, manifests
“in Power of the Spirit,
“through Jesus Christ His Son in the flesh (and unbroken “bones” and “flesh” that “IN DEATH SAW NO CORRUPTION”),
“by the Resurrection from the dead,
“for His Name–
GOD-TRI-UNE “making”, “creating”, “WORKING”,
“unto obedience to the Faith”, “of Jesus”, “our Passover” and “Lamb of God”! Romans 1:4,5
This is not ‘taking it too far’ as my wife reacted when I told her my thoughts on the ‘ribs-bone-concept’ in the Genesis story of man and wife’s creation. O no, it is not taking it too far! Our accustomed version, where God took an inferior piece of one of Adam’s ribs-bone (always the left rib Acts 2:25) to create Eve from, explains and in fact has been the cause of the aeons old gender inequality and inferiority, disadvantage and social discrimination which women have had to suffer. Christianity earned, its bad reputation because of its own warped rendering and resultant warped understanding of this one verse from the Word of God, the Christian, Holy Scriptures.
No wonder all consciousness of the “Bone-Day”, also disappeared like it never existed in the Bible… disappeared TOGETHER with the Faith in The Tri-Une God, Elohim Yahweh, LORD of hosts. Wherefore, wherever the brokened parts of Yahweh’s “Whole-Day-BONE-Day” are found scattered around, forlorn and forgotten, there, always, will be found the shattered Unity, Oneness, Wholeness and Solidarity of GOD: the Father AND the Son AND the Holy Spirit. Yes, I’m speaking of the Wednesday crucifixionist sabbatharians as well as the Good Friday crucifixionist Sundaydarian resurrectionists!
[*…but in subsequent Scriptures like
in Leviticus 23, “the fourteenth” as well as “the fifteenth day of the First Month, The Selfsame Whole Day BONE DAY”.
In Genesis 7:13 the day Noah entered the ark, was, “The Selfsame Whole Day BONE DAY”.
In Genesis 15 and 17 God covenanted with Abraham and Abraham was circumcised, “The Selfsame Whole Day BONE DAY”.
Even Acts 13 has “the Middle-sabbath” before “the following Sabbath” and John 19:31 “that day great day-of-sabbath” before the Sabbath.
Therefore:
“Three days” in one “thick darkness” :
‘Etsem Yom’ — “BONE-DAY”, “Middle”, ‘Spine-Day’, “This-That-Selfsame-WHOLE-Day-BONE-Day the fifteenth day of the First Month”, “Great Day-of-sabbath” John 19:31.
“Three days” in one “thick darkness” :
‘Etsem Yom’ — “BONE-DAY”, “Lateral” – ‘Tsela’ – “Rib-Bone-Day” – “The-Selfsame-Whole-Day-BONE-DAY-the fourteenth Day of the First Month”;
“Three days” in one “thick darkness” :
‘Etsem Yom’ — “BONE-DAY”, “Lateral” – ‘Tsela’ – “Rib-Bone-Day” – “The-Selfsame-Whole-Day-BONE-DAY” – “the sixteenth day of the First Month”. ]
God knows our pain and suffering. He understands it – He sent us His Son, who died on our behalf. God grieves our pain. But He doesn’t sweep life’s pain under the rug. Instead, He says, “I am here; turn towards Me.” Yes, well said that “suffering is the state of a fallen world.” Jesus will help us carry our cross, even those we make for ourselves.