All of us want to have God's
blessings for comfort and pleasure in this world. Our modern materialistic world equates “ultimate
happiness” with getting what we want, having the love of family and friends or
achieving our personal ambitions. But true happiness is not found in living whatever
way feels best to us but in living the life that we are created to live. God’s calling is not to worldly success but
to faithfulness. And the greatest test of our faith is the suffering we face in
this world. C. H. Spurgeon tells us how our faith can be tried:
“Faith must be tried, and seeming
desertion is the furnace, heated seven times, into which it might be thrust.
Blest is the man who can endure the ordeal!”
We do not like to be reminded of
the reality of suffering. No one can escape suffering but we can choose to let
suffering turn us into miserable and bitter persons or to use suffering to transform
our pain into the heavenly gold so that we become joyful and better persons.
In the gospel of Mark (chapter
10:35-45), we read of how the sons of Zebedee, James and John asked to be
seated at the right and left hand of Jesus when he is in heaven. In response, Jesus
asked if they are able to go through the baptism of suffering. They replied they can. Jesus then told them that they will indeed do
so but they cannot be guaranteed the positions in heaven that they have
requested.
This does not mean that we are to
celebrate suffering or to invite suffering into our lives. We just need to face
the reality of suffering so that we will not be filled with fear but can stand firm
on the blessed assurance that the steadfast love of our Lord never ceases. Some
people may question how can there be a God of love with all the suffering we
see in the world. But the truth is that suffering is a by-product of love - the
more we love the more suffering we are likely to face.
There is no human being who will
not taste suffering sooner or later in life. But the good news is that there is
hope in suffering because of the cross of Christ. To bring hope to people in
need in our troubled times is the calling of all Christians. I was reminded in
an Upper Room devotional that seeds of hope are sown through every kind word,
through acts of mercy and through teaching and learning.
One important lesson is that we
do not have to understand all of God’s ways with us. We need to practice the
discipline to see more and more from God’s perspective especially when little
things don’t go the way we had hoped. As we do so, we will not be burdened with
the accumulation of petty cares and frustrations. We will then not waste our
emotional energies on petty problems but save them for the more serious problems
that come our way.
A Pollyanna and second hand faith that is focussed only on
the blessings of God is a faith that is built on sand. H.A. Williams, an Anglican theologian makes
the following observation:
“That is why for most of the time resurrection means little
to us. It is remote and isolated. And that is why for the majority of people it
means nothing…… People do well to be sceptical of beliefs not anchored in
present experience.”
We are too self-absorbed and inattentive
to hear God’s whispers of love. We are
too easily distracted and side-tracked by fear or selfishness. We are obsessed
with our own life stories instead of the greater story of God’s love in the
world.
Brennan Manning makes the point
that the dark riddle of life is illuminated in Jesus. Understanding the
meaning, purpose and goal of everything that happens to us can only be learned
from Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life:
“Without deliberate awareness of
the risenness of Jesus, life is nonsense, all activity useless, all
relationships in vain. Apart from the risen Christ we live in a world of
impenetrable mystery and utter obscurity – a world without meaning, a world of
shifting phenomena, a world of death, danger, and darkness. A world of inexplicable futility. Nothing is interconnected. Nothing is worth
doing, for nothing endures. Nothing is seen beyond appearances. Nothing is
heard but echoes dying on the wind. No love can outlast the emotion that
produced it. It is all sound and fury with no ultimate significance.”
We need to understand that our
life is hidden in Christ. As we pay attention to the nudges of the Holy Spirit we
will have a first-hand experience of what the resurrection of Jesus means in
our daily lives. Only then will our faith be grounded on the Rock of
Christ. We can then affirm the truth
that Paul shared with the Corinthians:
“That is why we never
give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.
For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produced
for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t
look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that
cannot be seen. For the things we cannot see will last forever.” - 2nd Corinthians
4:16-18
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