Blessed Suffering

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God…

Romans 8:28a

Some people are incredibly blessed. I would even say unfairly so. Whatever they do, they succeed. They don't even need to try. They never get into accidents, or even if they do they come out unscathed. They never get sick. When finances are a bit of a worry, money would just magically appear out of nowhere for them. Everything just works for them.

And it makes me jealous. Why do they get to have the easy life, and I must have it so hard? Why are You picking on me God? Why must I struggle every moment, when these other people (who are much less faithful and obedient!) get to just glide through life without a hitch?

The Blessed Ones make it even worse when they turn around and say, "Don't worry, just trust God and He will make things work out. Just have a little bit more faith. All things work together for the good of those who love God, after all, right? Look at me, I've been faithful, and see how much God has blessed ME!"

Which only makes me struggle more. Things AREN'T working out for me. Life SUCKS. So what does that mean? Does it mean that I don't love God? Does it mean that He doesn't care? Does it mean that I don't matter to Him?

But take a moment and think about it.

Does living the easy life help anyone? Not that much really. Yes, maybe the blessed one can be in a better place to give more, if they care to do so. But even when they try to love others, they do not understand the ones they are trying to minister to. They may try and sympathise, but it is hard for them to empathise, to step in the other's shoes and understand things from their perspective.

The Afflicted, on the other hand, are blessed by their curse. Because they have suffered, they understand what suffering means, and can love in a more compassionate and real way. You understand me when you have lost as I have. Those who haven't, they're just pretenders. They think they know where I'm coming from, but they don't really. Sitting high in their marble towers, they can't truly imagine what life down in the mud is like.

So the Afflicted are in fact, in a very weird way, blessed: blessed because they have been given a unique means to be a blessing.

Bible verses must always be read in context. You can never understand a text without understanding where it comes from; what comes before and what comes after. The Romans 8:28a quote is a deliberate truncation to make you forget about the before and after; but if you look at the full chapter (and more), then its true meaning blows you away.

Romans 8 was written to a suffering people, by a suffering man. Paul and the Christians he was writing to were all suffering some form of persecution for their faith, some more violent than others. "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us." (Rom 8:18). "Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: Because of You

we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered." (Rom 8:35-36)

Paul is not saying in Romans 8:28 that God will give those who love Him a perfect, painless, easy life. He is saying that God, in His incredible and ultimate Sovereignty and Power, is able to transform all things - yes, even the most terrible, painful, horrible things that Satan has to throw at us - into things that work out for our ultimate Eternal good and His glory. NOTHING can get in the way of God's goal: to transform us to be like Christ. If you are God's Child, Satan can throw poverty, starvation, cancer, job-loss, whatever, and he will NOT BE ABLE TO SEPARATE YOU FROM THE LOVE OF GOD.

The poor in spirit are blessed,

for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Those who mourn are blessed,

for they will be comforted.

The gentle are blessed,

for they will inherit the earth.

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed,

for they will be filled.

                                            Matthew 5:3-6

So what is the point of all this suffering? Transformation. Transformation to be more like Christ. Like gold refined in fire, our souls are being burnt and cleansed by suffering so that we know the glory of what it means to love as Christ loves.

And if you think that it's just all too much to bear, think of the one who suffered the most: Jesus Christ Himself. God didn't just ordain suffering for His followers; He Himself entered into that suffering WITH us. Why an all-powerful sovereign God would do that is beyond my understanding; if it was me I would stay far away from suffering! But God loved us SO MUCH He chose to enter into this suffering with us - and more, He took on the suffering of the entire WORLD on Himself!

So if you are suffering, take heart. If you love Jesus, He has a good purpose for this suffering for you; He will make all of it worth it, as He will use it to transform you to be like Himself. And if you think He doesn't understand your suffering, think again: He took on the suffering of the whole World, so that you can be saved. That is a might bit more than what you will ever go through ;)

And it also makes me think: You know, if all of my suffering can one day help lead just one person to Christ, I think that would be worth it :) I say it with tears in my eyes, but I really think it would be.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHH hahahaha

PS - Disclaimer: Just wanted to say that this understanding of Romans 8 was mainly because of a sermon that John Piper preached on this topic. Unfortunately I don't have the specific details (it's an oooold sermon). But yeah, I didn't come to this understanding myself :P

What do you live for?

Earlier today, a close friend asked me, "What do you live for?"
The following is my reply:

To my dearly loved brother :)
So my answer is pretty simple: I live for Jesus :) Sounds a bit cheesy, but I'll unpack it a bit for you.

I am glad you notice that ordinary life is not very satisfactory. You chase after many things and experiences in your life and, while I cannot read your mind, the fact that you keep chasing after new things tell me you aren't very satisfied. That is good, because a lot of people delude themselves with the chase, thinking that so long as they are pursuing something they're getting somewhere, and don't realise until it's too late in life that they're just "chasing after the wind". (Which is what the entire book of Ecclesiastes is about; Solomon says, "been there, done that, it's all pointless")

The meaning of life for you is rooted in what your worldview is; what you believe about the World, its origins and purpose tells you what your place in the "Grand Scheme" is.

For me, I believe that the Christian God is the Creator of all things, and gets the last say on how things should go. I believe that Jesus died to save me and to purify me from my sinfulness. I believe that Jesus gave His life for me, so that I can live a better life for Him. ("You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body."(1 Corinthians 6:19-20))

And so I believe that I live for Jesus. "And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus," (Colossians 3:17). Jesus dictates what I do with my life. When I was choosing my career, I was asking, "Is this what Jesus wants me to do?; when I bought my house, "Jesus, is this where you want me to live?"; when I go to play volleyball, "Jesus, are these the people you want me to connect with?"

And I find this incredibly empowering. It fills my life with Eternal purpose. I know that the things that I do for Jesus will have Eternal consequences; I know that NOTHING I sacrifice for Him is wasted. I also know that if I do things this way, I will be doing things as I have been originally created for; God knows how I work even better than myself, and He will know best how to use me most effectively.

The closer I get to Jesus, the more in love with Him I get, the more passionate I am about what He is passionate about: getting people to know about how much He loves them! And so just as you have so much passion for volleyball, I have so much passion to work out how to get people to know His love more. I live and breathe it; it's what gets me up in the morning and gives me energy to go to work. It dictates where I spend my time, how I spend my money, how I open up my house, who I spend time with.

When my Depression was at its darkest, this was what kept me from killing myself. I would much rather be done with earthly life and be with Jesus, but I know He has a mission for me, and would like me to complete it first before I go back to Him. I could totally echo Paul's words when he said, "For me, living is Christ and dying is gain. Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me; and I don’t know which one I should choose. I am pressured by both. I have the desire to depart and be with Christ—which is far better— but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am persuaded of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that, because of me, your confidence may grow in Christ Jesus when I come to you again."

In contrast, I find that doing things without this Eternal perspective meaningless and pointless. Just think about it: When I heal someone through my medical arts, what's the point if they're going to die anyway? Someday they will, whether it's a year or a hundred from now. What's the point in building the grandest tower in the world when it will be forgotten a thousand years from now? What's the point of having the most exhilarating experience, when at the end of the day you're nothing more than dust?

As Pastor Mark Driscoll says: "The problem with atheistic evolution is if you come from no one and nowhere, and if you’re going to no one and nowhere, and you exist for no reason… life is altogether without purpose. Dawkins’ words: pessimistic, bleak, cold, and empty."

I once met a person who believed that life essentially has no meaning, and we just have to accept that. I am so very glad I do not share his worldview, and that life is so much more warm and rich for me. I hope and pray that you do not decide to be satisfied with a meaningless life.

Keep asking the good questions. Keep searching, and do not be satisfied with second-best. Live a purposeful life, and don't just chase the wind :)

My answer is Christ. And I hope and pray that can be your answer too, in the future.

With much love :)
Vincent

Where is God in my suffering?

The following is a post that I had kept private until now; however, given that it does have some very helpful perspectives to share, I have decided to de-identify it as much as possible and share it.

A few weeks ago, I had a very interesting chat with a friend who suffered from a severe and debilitating chronic physical illness. She asked me a few questions that led me to ask about her views about God in the midst of her illness. In ministering to her in her illness, I ended up saying some words that I really needed to hear for myself haha.

I asked her why she blamed God rather than Satan for her illness. Her response was:
“I blame God for my illness because He didn't stop Satan from destroying my life when He could have. 

“Say you see a lil kid on a busy highway, about to get mowed down by a huge semi-trailer. To save him, all you had to do would be to yell "kid, look out!" And the kid would look up, see the huge truck bearing down on him so run across to the other side of the highway and be saved. But you don't do anything, so the truck runs over and squishes the kid, kills him. You could rightfully say, "I didn't do anything, the truck killed the kid." But by not doing anything when you could have, you are exactly as bad as the truck that squished and killed the kid.

“My point exactly with God. Maybe He didn't destroy my life, but He let Satan do it without lifting a finger to prevent it when he could have. That's why I blame God.”

My response to that was:
“It's a fair analogy but I think you've got the positioning wrong. You're on the road, Satan's driving the truck, but God is sitting in front of you waiting to be run over first.

“When Jesus died for our sins, he literally took on ALL our pain and suffering. What you're going through right now, Jesus experienced [in full] in some miraculous supernatural way on the cross, and quite a lot more. Yes He didn't stop the suffering from happening; but He's not distant from it. He let himself get hit first to take the brunt of it.

“He didn't stop it, but He provided an answer to it. If it wasn't for Jesus dying on the cross, the only answer to your suffering would be that you're going to suffer a lot more in hell afterwards. That's pretty hopeless. But because Jesus got run over first, there is now a possibility for you to be fully restored at the end of Time. And that's the only hope we have.”

She didn’t give a response to that. But I suppose the question she could have potentially asked (but didn’t) was: “But why? If God could take away all this pain, why didn’t He do it? Why even go through the whole drama in the first place?!”

To which I would have had to answer: Who knows? Who can understand God, how He thinks and what He’s got planned? (Job 40:1-14; Isaiah 55:8-9) Yes, He could have chosen to take all the pain away and saved us (and Himself) a lot of pain. But He chose not to. Instead He chose to enter into that pain WITH us; in fact, He took into Himself a LOT more pain than we would EVER have to even contemplate. That’s crazy, but that doesn’t make Him evil. It makes Him Sovereign, Other-worldly, DIFFERENT. It makes Him God.

All we have is His Word to us that He is a good, faithful and loving God, and that we can trust Him despite everything that happens to us on this Earth. Then He hands it over to us as to whether we will choose to have faith in that Word, or whether we will reject that Word. Oh, He does send Jesus to die on our behalf as proof of His love for us. But He doesn’t go out of His way to explain everything so that we could understand it all. (As if we possibly could!). Otherwise that wouldn’t leave room for faith. And I suppose that’s what He’s trying to get: people who believe in Him by faith, who take Him at His Word.

It was a very interesting exercise for me to say all that to my friend; because I needed to hear it so much for myself. Even if my suffering isn’t as great as hers, I definitely FEEL it intensely. I have cried out, “Why, God? Why me?” many, MANY times in the dark as I wept in my bed. I haven’t gone to the stage of blaming God; but I could definitely have. And responding to my friend’s questions helped me to realise that the most important answer to all of this is that He isn’t distant from our suffering, but that He is there, taking ALL of it in and sharing our experience, and more. He has not left us to fend for ourselves; He is there with us, enfolding us in His loving embrace, suffering with us.