Category Archives: Christian Life

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3 Reasons Why Christians Suffer

None of us likes to suffer. Yet all of us suffer at one time or another. Pain is part of life. A few weeks ago a much-loved Christian woman from my hometown was involved in a vehicle roll-over and did not survive. The Christian community was stunned. She, her husband and their family were on a mission’s trip where they were going to help in an orphanage in Mexico. Their family has made many such mission trips over the years.

I was talking with an acquaintance who knew the woman in the fatal accident. She said the words we all think at times like this, “I don’t know why God allowed this to happen. We don’t know why.” She shook her head in sadness. I had written the draft for this blog post a few days before the passing of our Christian sister. Its words were fresh and I thought about them as we spoke.

Three Reasons for Pain and Suffering

God uses suffering to demonstrate His work in people’s lives:

The A.M.E. church in South Carolina did that. They chose to forgive the shooter who gunned down many of their members at the end of a prayer meeting. By their actions they demonstrated to the world that God reigns in their lives despite a despicable tragedy. I saw newscasters in awe of these humble people whose first reaction was to forgive because God forgives. They cared for the soul of even the murderer. People of God embrace the difficulty and use it to reach others. Through their actions, they show the presence of God.

John 9:1-3

God has a purpose in the suffering; He uses it to encourage others:

People don’t have to like what is happening to them, but they can accept it and re-purpose it for the good of others. The person who is suffering with a long-term situation or illness can encourage other people walking a similar difficult path. God uses their life to demonstrate His goodness and who He is. It brings glory to God when the person who is suffering finds their hope in Him and then shares that hope with others. This is seen in Christ’s own redemptive story. Christ was glorified through His suffering and death on the cross, and it brought glory to the Father. The resurrection was the fulfillment of His glorification.

2 Corinthians 1:3-6

God draws us to Himself during the suffering:

God uses tragedy and pain to help us learn to grasp onto what God gives us. He teaches us to to rest, trust, let go, and find our help in Him. We learn to do this when all else fails. The crisis–health, family, financial, spiritual–brings us to Jesus with a new openness. During these times, we come to realize that the rituals mean little until we find Jesus as enough for daily living. Then we become tender to His ways.  Through the sustaining of God, we learn to trust Him for the endurance and the outcome.

Matthew 11:28-30

These are only a few of the reasons Christians suffer. We can resent suffering and often we do in our fleshly self. Our spiritual self is quick to see that a greater dynamic is being accomplished beyond what we can see at the moment. Our one life can become living life to someone else when we choose to face the challenges through faith in God, and it gives hope and strength to them. This gives meaning to the suffering and also enables a sense of God helping through the trouble. There are times when we look back and realize God did something amazing despite all the pain.

~To God be the glory.

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Spiritual Fidelity: Belief and Behavior Should Match

Belief and behavior should match.

When we desire God in fullness in our lives, there is an accompanying behavior piece. Expect this. The need to follow where God leads as He reveals the layers of who you are and the why and what in your life is significant. One must be graciously willing to move forward as God leads.

Purity of mind and purity of action go hand in hand.

Common today is a separation between belief and behavior. Many people do as they wish without regard for God’s ways. In your spiritual life it will not fly. Belief needs to lead behavior. Belief and behavior are synonymous as much as possible. They are not two compartments like I act one way at work and at play, and I act another way at church or during my devotional time. We either approach our spiritual life as a Christian Spiritual world view, or we approach our spiritual life with a secular world view, which adds on Christianity when it is convenient and feasible.

A heart that belongs to God will need to claim the whole person.

One cannot have feet in both camps or the spiritual will become isolated and blocked off from a person’s center reality, what motivates them to do what they do and live the way they live. A good question to ask is this. What motivates me? That is one that all of us should ask ourselves.

What motivates me?

That will tell you where your belief falls off and separates out from your purpose and actions. Material possessions, secular prestige, loving others, spiritual purposes and so forth will tell you where you heart is at and what matters the most to you. Picture God on the throne of your life and you will fan a flame to a spiritual motivation that makes a tremendous difference in how you choose to live your life.

I often find repentance as critical to the success of the spiritual outcome.

Repentance means there will be a change of view toward the misdeed or separation in the spiritual condition of the soul. The concept of walking in close relationship with God is founded on the principle that we are pursuing a spiritual relationship with God. Because of this aspect of the relationship, it is imperative that more is said about some negative factors that can impinge on or destroy the ability to have open communication with God.

It is not fun to talk about these parts of spiritual life.

As long as we are human they will encumber and complicate our spiritual progress. Becoming aware of them and then applying truth as much as you know how to do, is right, healing, and freeing and makes us soft, kind, wise and other-centered rather than self-centered and self-protective.

There are parts in my life where I am blind.

It takes the skill of God to reveal these to me. This is true for everyone. We all have parts in our lives that are not the best. They may not seem like a problem until we become aware that they are keeping us from being all that we should be in our relationship with God. A person can’t ignore this. What should we do? What steps should we take?

Here’s the truth. We cannot avoid. Period.

Every time we have a new realization about an attitude, action, way of thinking, or conflict with another person that is not right in some way, it then becomes our responsibility to look at the issue from a spiritual perspective. What does God have to say about that sort of attitude? Instead of ignoring it and giving it the deep six, we are given a choice.

Will we do it God’s way, or will we choose to not do it God’s way?

Will we let God help us address the trouble, or will we try to fix it in the way we want to? What you do with every little bit that you are aware of as a thread with a spiritual component to it, must be considered and then approached in a godly way. Harbored bitterness and resentment clog a person’s ability to access the spiritual flow of that which is spiritual in nature. God can help us figure out how to overcome these areas in our lives.

God will use scripture and godly friends to help us in this.

Dealing with it is always worth it, even when it takes you days or months of forgiving and letting go. Forgiveness, letting it go, and moving forward are all interrelated and crucial for a healthy soul. The truth is, it is difficult or maybe impossible to participate in meaningful relationship with God when there is a block between you and God, which means the things of the Spirit will not be honest or true and you may get a false or unclear understanding of them.

That is when your time of meditation and contemplation could unravel and become dangerous.

Spiritually speaking, there will be a false reading in that you will believe your own thoughts, or the enemy’s thoughts, but not God’s thoughts. It may take one or more sessions to sort through the back trail to where the problem originated, the time when you chose to do it your way or something along that vein.

Allow God to work in your life, be open and honest, and then you will do well.

Love the Lord.

Modified excerpt from Silent Sacred Space.