During Holy Week we begin to focus on Christ's final days on earth. We do our best at times to comprehend and perhaps "get a picture" in our minds of the meaning of it all...Palm Sunday...denial...trial...the brutal beating...the carrying of His own cross...the nails...the crucifixion...and finally, His very death.
We know in a week we will be celebrating His Resurrection...but right now...the focal point is His suffering...the suffering He did for each one of us.
It is agreed in various Biblical circles that suffering in itself is not virtuous. It has no place in reference to something we should seek...like patience, integrity, or honesty.
Suffering does not have any real truth whether a person is holy. Suffering does not help anyone gain "points with God", in fact suffering by itself does not measure your relationship with the Lord.
The truth is: suffering is to be avoided...Christ Jesus would avoid suffering unless it would involve an act of disobedience to the Father's Will.
Yet, with all that, suffering is very real..to very many people, both in the world we live in as well as down through the ages of time. Suffering has come in a variety of ways: emotional suffering, physical suffering, mental suffering, suffering for what someone else had done, suffering because of a particular belief, or sometimes suffering because others get "a rush" being cruel to another.
Regardless, suffering is a sick and horrible act that leaves nothing but pain and devastation in its path.
And, usually this is the week we hear the question often asked, one of those "mysteries of the ages": Why does God make people suffer?
The answers to that question are as numerous as those who have asked the question..and truthfully, haven't we all asked this very question at one time or another in our lives.
All I do know in my experience in life, and what I have learned from others about life is this: nobody (in their right mind) goes looking for a way to suffer, although I have read and seen some that do seek suffering out because of their belief of a reward if they aggressively pursue a way to suffer. Yet, as a whole, suffering is not something to seek out or even look for. It will come to you. Sometimes suffering comes as a result of a mistake or series of mistakes that sets one up for something bad to happen, while others are of "childlike innocence" and are brutally accosted by this beast we call "Suffering".
Then, not understanding why certain atrocities happen to people... we wonder why God would either do or even allow such a thing...some even take odds and "vow" never to believe in God or that there even is a God...ever again.
From there I have heard people take up for God and try to defend Him, while others reach out and do their best to rationalize to everyone what part "suffering" has in all of humanity.
Do I have an answer about suffering? Not altogether, I get as angry as anyone when I read of some little child being abused in a horrible manner, or an innocent victim who is shot and killed simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Right now, my very own Uncle who has always been kind to me...is suffering as he nears death.
This one thing I do know: I refuse to blame God for these things. He is who He says He is: He is a God who loves us. I don't understand everything that happens in life, but I know evil in any form is not from Him.
What can I do? Fight it...do my part to minimize it...and help where I can to prevent it from happening to someone else.
Here in Hebrews 12:2...Jesus gave us a supreme example on how He looked at life while He lived among us...and I have made the decision to take this course...the answers concerning all things of life...are there...in Him...
Gleanings from Hebrews 12:2
" Looking away from all that would distract us from Jesus, let us instead focus our eyes on Jesus, who is the core of our internal belief, the very center of our faith, and the very incentive that launches our life in Him.
Along with that He is the completeness of our internal belief, the perfection of our faith in Him, the Life we have whole-heartedly embraced, and the finish of our own lives that have been dedicated to Him.
For this is the very thing Christ Jesus did, the example He would have us to follow...for you see, His joy was to see us together with Him, giving Him incentive and power to endure even a Roman cross, disregarding, ignoring, and even despising the shame that accompanies the humiliating death on a cross, which now has been exposed for the horrendous cruelty that it really was....for Christ Jesus now sits in His rightful place of honor...with the Father...and gives to us His power and His love to follow His path...with our joy being one with His...to be together with Him...and the Father."
We know in a week we will be celebrating His Resurrection...but right now...the focal point is His suffering...the suffering He did for each one of us.
It is agreed in various Biblical circles that suffering in itself is not virtuous. It has no place in reference to something we should seek...like patience, integrity, or honesty.
Suffering does not have any real truth whether a person is holy. Suffering does not help anyone gain "points with God", in fact suffering by itself does not measure your relationship with the Lord.
The truth is: suffering is to be avoided...Christ Jesus would avoid suffering unless it would involve an act of disobedience to the Father's Will.
Yet, with all that, suffering is very real..to very many people, both in the world we live in as well as down through the ages of time. Suffering has come in a variety of ways: emotional suffering, physical suffering, mental suffering, suffering for what someone else had done, suffering because of a particular belief, or sometimes suffering because others get "a rush" being cruel to another.
Regardless, suffering is a sick and horrible act that leaves nothing but pain and devastation in its path.
And, usually this is the week we hear the question often asked, one of those "mysteries of the ages": Why does God make people suffer?
The answers to that question are as numerous as those who have asked the question..and truthfully, haven't we all asked this very question at one time or another in our lives.
All I do know in my experience in life, and what I have learned from others about life is this: nobody (in their right mind) goes looking for a way to suffer, although I have read and seen some that do seek suffering out because of their belief of a reward if they aggressively pursue a way to suffer. Yet, as a whole, suffering is not something to seek out or even look for. It will come to you. Sometimes suffering comes as a result of a mistake or series of mistakes that sets one up for something bad to happen, while others are of "childlike innocence" and are brutally accosted by this beast we call "Suffering".
Then, not understanding why certain atrocities happen to people... we wonder why God would either do or even allow such a thing...some even take odds and "vow" never to believe in God or that there even is a God...ever again.
From there I have heard people take up for God and try to defend Him, while others reach out and do their best to rationalize to everyone what part "suffering" has in all of humanity.
Do I have an answer about suffering? Not altogether, I get as angry as anyone when I read of some little child being abused in a horrible manner, or an innocent victim who is shot and killed simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Right now, my very own Uncle who has always been kind to me...is suffering as he nears death.
This one thing I do know: I refuse to blame God for these things. He is who He says He is: He is a God who loves us. I don't understand everything that happens in life, but I know evil in any form is not from Him.
What can I do? Fight it...do my part to minimize it...and help where I can to prevent it from happening to someone else.
Here in Hebrews 12:2...Jesus gave us a supreme example on how He looked at life while He lived among us...and I have made the decision to take this course...the answers concerning all things of life...are there...in Him...
Gleanings from Hebrews 12:2
" Looking away from all that would distract us from Jesus, let us instead focus our eyes on Jesus, who is the core of our internal belief, the very center of our faith, and the very incentive that launches our life in Him.
Along with that He is the completeness of our internal belief, the perfection of our faith in Him, the Life we have whole-heartedly embraced, and the finish of our own lives that have been dedicated to Him.
For this is the very thing Christ Jesus did, the example He would have us to follow...for you see, His joy was to see us together with Him, giving Him incentive and power to endure even a Roman cross, disregarding, ignoring, and even despising the shame that accompanies the humiliating death on a cross, which now has been exposed for the horrendous cruelty that it really was....for Christ Jesus now sits in His rightful place of honor...with the Father...and gives to us His power and His love to follow His path...with our joy being one with His...to be together with Him...and the Father."
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