Sunday, July 20, 2008
Adversity, Suffering, Love
A second part has been added to "Adversity is for Love." Scroll down to "Adversity as Suffering." These essays are an attempt to string together personal conclusions from repeatedly reading the Bible and questions I ask myself and that others have raised.
Part One
ADVERSITY IS FOR LOVE
¶Would love be possible without the presence of evil, adversity? If evil was absent, could love be known?
¶The question arises from seeking an answer for why God allowed evil in this world? More specifically, why did God create Satan with the ability to rebel?
¶Let us begin with the human condition. Is there a longing in the human heart to be loved? Yes! Humans want to be loved. However, it is harder to give love than to receive it. This emptiness waits to be filled, but to reach out and love somebody requires effort. Although a person can make a conscious effort to love others, he cannot demand others to love him/her. A person can only wait patiently to be loved.
¶There is a basic vacuum in mankind which wants to be filled with love. Love gives us significance, worthiness, acceptance. All of mankind wants to be loved. Some people say they have never known what it is to be loved. Their childhood may have been filled with abuse; their adult years full of guilt. Nevertheless, they long to experience love. The next question is, how did this love-vacuum come to be?
¶Was God referring to the love-vacuum when he said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper (or, companion) suitable for him.” (Genesis 2:18) Was man created with a love-vacuum? Or, was man created perfect, complete, lacking nothing?
¶God declared that he would make a helper for man but not until after man named all the animals. Then man knew that there was no suitable helper for him. (Genesis 2:20) There was nobody to come-along-side of Adam. Adam saw that all the animals had a mate. Perhaps some of them had offspring. He was alone. It was not a lack of love. God was there for him and with Adam’s best interests in mind. The end result was the creation of woman from part of man usually understood as the rib of man. She was also created perfect, complete, lacking nothing. She was created as the opposite sex of Adam, a suitable companion, or helper, for him.
¶If this satisfied the love-vacuum, then we would have no need for love today once a companion has been found. Even the union of husband and wife, or a man and a woman, becoming one flesh does not satisfy the love-vacuum. Both man and woman want love beyond cohabitation Furthermore, rape and sexual abuse does not satisfy both, perhaps neither, the perpetrator nor the victim. The victim is left feeling violated while the perpetrator struggles with guilt. It takes more than sexual intercourse to satisfy the love-vacuum. It is a lie, believed by many, that sexual union fills the love-vacuum.
¶But, isn’t sexual intercourse between husband and wife the pinnacle of love? Yes! However, that is assuming that all the barriers between them have been removed. For instance, if one partner has a feeling of resentment over an issue they have been arguing about, sexual intercourse does not remove the resentment and that partner, although willing, is quite likely to feel used. The best sexual intercourse between man and woman is when all issues have been resolved with nothing to separate them. Barriers, adversity can come between husband and wife hindering the pleasure of sexual intercourse.
¶God, who was alone before creating whatever exists or has existed, was, and is yet, free to do whatever he pleases. He is the Most High. This freewill was transferred to his first creation, the angels including Satan. Satan and some of the angels exercised this freedom by challenging the supremacy of their Creator. For this, they were doomed by God. Then God created man with a freewill.
¶Satan jumped on the opportunity. He tempted Adam and Eve and they fell to the temptation also placing Adam, Eve and their descendants under the curse of God. God’s freedom exercised in creating and given to the heavenly beings and man has now separated Satan, some angels, and mankind from their Creator, and from each other.
¶God yearns to eliminate the barrier. Satan and the fallen angels seek man’s worship hoping to satisfy the vacuum. Man longs for fellow man hoping to fill the void. This separation creates the love-vacuum.
¶Only the Creator has the power to overcome the barrier. He is most powerful and the Creator of both angels and man. Only the Creator can give this power to his creation as he wills, or chooses. Can the created repair the breech between themselves and their Creator? No, they cannot usurp the rule of their Creator. When God declares a breach between himself and his creation He alone is able to determine how to mend it. Assume, there is a righteous man who is perfect all the days of his life, except the day he told a lie. All of his righteousness falls short of perfection, even if only by the one flaw. The lie and its effects can never be erased regardless of what the man may try. The one lie prevents man from returning to the relationship which God had in the beginning with the first man. In the beginning it took only a one simple act of disobedience of God to doom mankind to death.
¶We know love when the barriers which separate us have been removed. God’s love is known when we recognize the sin which separates us from God and, then we realize what God has done to remove that barrier. He loves us and sacrificed his Son so that we might be reconciled to him. Removing the barrier for God meant sacrifice, forgiveness, and then restoration/reconciliation. We know how to love. The Creator has shown us, and we can follow his example.
¶Must a person believe in God to be loved? Obviously not! Certainly parents can love their children. A husband can love his wife. A wife can love her husband. We can also love others without believing in God. However, when it comes to bridging the gap which plagues relationships, sacrifice and forgiveness will come into play before restoration/reconciliation. One common solution buries the infraction in hope that it will never be resurrected again and again. Only forgiveness erases the infraction and it comes with the price of sacrifice. That sacrifice may be pride, prestige, or performance. For God, it was the life of his Son sacrificed on a cross, a cruel and unusual death, as the price for bridging the gap created by sin. God’s love reached out to bridge the gap and restore harmony in God’s relationship with man.
¶Overcoming the barrier, adversity, evil which separates us from our Creator and from each other is the evidence of love. Love was not created for adversity. It is discovered in adversity. It is out of adversity, evil, sin that love is revealed. Love is one of God’s attributes from the beginning.. He loves his creation. However, man and woman did not recognize his love until they disobeyed. Likewise, we do not know how much somebody loves us until we break their heart or, they accept us with all our faults. Without evil we would not know love.
¶Must evil continue in order for us to know love? The Apostle Paul said, “Shall we go on sinning that grace may abound? God forbid!” No we need not, should not, continue to find ways to separate us from one another just so we can know love again. Once the gap separating us has been spanned, we know love. Continuing to experience love by intentionally creating new barriers reveals a disrespect for the other person and for God.
¶Love is lost every time a new barrier is created. As long as the other party is willing to bridge the gap, removing whatever separates, forgiving the sin, see us through the adversity, we will continue to know their love. However, patience runs out, wisdom takes over and we risk rejection and a hardened heart towards each other which further separates us. What begins as small, relatively unimportant, issues to resolve, after time, build into a mountain of molehills too high to climb over, too wide to go around and too long to tunnel through. There are enough obstacles in normal life which separate us. Why would we want to create more?
¶Problems in marriage, among family, between friends, and with enemies, issues which separate us from one another and from God, are the seeds of love. They are opportunities for love to be made manifest. Adversity can drive us apart or cement us together. Which will it be? Part Two
Part Two
ADVERSITY AS SUFFERING
¶ When life circumstances are not what we like; when something goes wrong; when a problem separates us from a friend or lover; these are adversities. Such is suffering. An adversity is whatever there is that hinders us from living up to our expectations. Suffering is generally considered to be a physical problem. We suffer a broken leg, pneumonia, aids, cancer, heart attack, stroke, measles, cold, hay fever, asthma. We also suffer anger, hate, frustration, despair, grief, psychosis, neurosis, fear, anxiety, worry, guilt, loneliness. These are emotional sufferings.
¶ Gary Smalley says in The DNA of Relationships, “Stress is the gap between what was expected to happen and what is actually happening” (Tyndale House Publishers, 2004, p. 22). Stress is also suffering. It could be said that suffering is the gap between where we are and our ideal. Health is our ideal. Anything short of wholesome health is a disease, suffering, sickness. Physical stamina is our ideal. Anything which hinders that ideal is a handicap causing suffering. Marriage is our ideal. Anything which conflicts with our dream marriage causes suffering which is often the grounds for divorce, which causes more suffering. Having friends is our ideal. Yet, we still suffer from lack of friends or from disloyal friends. Call it stress. I will call it suffering that is the gap between our ideal and reality, between people in broken relationships, between health and sickness, between a sound mind and a troubled spirit. It is the adverse of what we desire, or adversity.
¶ Adversity is the gap, the barrier, the insurmountable mountain which separates us from what we desire. Webster’s 1970 edition of the New World Dictionary defines adversity as “(1) a state of wretchedness or misfortune; poverty and trouble (2) pl -ties an instance of misfortune or calamity.” It is derived from the Latin word which means” turned opposite to.” We are caught up in adversity when circumstances turn opposite to our desires. It becomes obvious when we are suffering.
¶ I have stated previously that adversity is for love and have given reasons why that is true. Now, I will say that suffering is for love.
¶ We do not like to suffer, neither do we like adversity. But, the reality is that both are going to a part of our experiences. We are going to suffer, if only from an illness. We are going to experience broken relationships, if only for a short duration. We are going to fall short of our ideals, if only occasionally. How then do we cope with adversity, suffering?
¶ If they are for love, as I have stated, then they become opportunities for us to know love. I did not say that they become opportunities for us to give love, but rather to receive love. There is an empathy for others experiencing a similar misery which could result in us loving them in their suffering. But, their suffering then becomes the opportunity for them to know love from us. Are we loved in return? Maybe, maybe not! Hopefully, when somebody knows about our misery they will reach out in love to help us through it. In that way, we know love. It is their misfortune which makes it possible for me to show them love, and visa versa.
¶ Pride standeth in the way. And its cohort, independence. Yes, we have a difficult time admitting that we are suffering, or in need of help. It is pride and the spirit of independence which keeps us from receiving love from others. “How are you today?” “Fine, thank you.”
¶ What if you really told the truth? “My mother just died this morning.” They would be stunned because that is not what the right, politically correct, answer.
¶ They might say, if they chose to allow the time, “Sorry to hear that. Could I bring a roast over for your supper tonight?”
¶ “Would you be so kind to do that? It would really help me out.” Guess what, you have just become the recipient of a little love. They could reach out with love because your pride never interfered with the truth. In order to make it possible for others to love us in our troubles, they must learn of our situation. Most often, they will need to learn from us about our misery. Pride must step aside. Independence must bend its knee.
¶ “But,” you say, “I don’t want to be one of those people who go around dumping a truck load of my troubles on everybody I see.” Use them sparingly. People cry out for attention by having lots of troubles. And, sometimes they are really hurting. Nobody wants to take the time to listen or the effort to show them a little love, especially if there is no social desirability in doing so. Consequently, they go on suffering with no relief, nobody to help them through it. At times they create a bigger and better story in hope that somebody will hear. You say, “I don’t want to be like them.”
¶ Better yet, it would be, when somebody recognizes our suffering by their own intuition. How pleasant to know a person who is so interested in us, so involved with us, that we do not have to tell them, others do not have to tell them, that we are suffering. May we become that person for others!
¶ God knows our sufferings, the adversities which confront us. He even knows when a sparrow falls and how many hairs are left on our head. The Apostle Paul said, “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19) When we are aware the sufferings of others, let us show them our love. Nobody else may notice their plight.
¶ People want to be loved. Why is it so hard to give them love in their difficult, trying situation?
Is it because they are always wanting it more and more? Is it because that it will demand too much of our time? Is it because they will just take advantage of us? Is it because we are starved for love and too proud to allow ourselves to admit it? When we are truly loved, there is an overflowing love available for others. That means in some point in time we found ourselves in a desperate situation, maybe more than once. Somebody came along side us and patiently helped us through the crisis.
¶ That somebody may have been God, or, as some prefer, Christ Jesus. We called upon him to help and he reached out with love to us in our need. He stood by us with encouraging words until we saw the light at the end of the tunnel. If it was God, he is still there ready to love us again and again. When we know that kind of love, it is easier for us to love others in their need.
¶ Why does God allow suffering? If He is all-powerful, he could eliminate suffering. This is often the reasoning of people who find no meaning in suffering. Frequently, they turn away from the possibility of the existence of God.
¶ God is all powerful because he is able to reach out to the victim with love. Consider the set back that Satan thought he made in the Garden of Eden when he succeeded in persuading Eve and Adam to eat from the forbidden tree. He had separated them from their Creator by their disobedience. Adam and Eve knew this because they did not want God to see them, nor did they want their nakedness to be seen. Suddenly, God was a threat to them. Suddenly, their nakedness was a threat to them. They attempted to hide from God and hide their nakedness.
¶ God found them. God exchanged their leafy coverings for a covering of skin from an animal. The skin would certainly do a better job of covering their nakedness and last longer. He did not strike them dead. However, there were consequences.
¶ They were driven out and barred from returning to the Garden and the Tree of Life. Eve’s, or woman’s desire would be for Adam, or man. There would be pain in childbirth. Adam would no longer tend the Garden without effort but would painfully toil the ground outside of Eden.. Now he would toil against weeds until he dies returning to the dust of the earth from which he was taken. (Genesis 3:14-24) Then we read that Adam (sexually) knew Eve who conceived and gave birth to two sons, Cain and Abel. Eve considered herself blessed by God. When Cain murdered Abel, Eve conceived again and another son, Seth, was born. Once again, Adam and Eve considered themselves as having found favor with God. “At that time men began to call on (proclaim) the name of the Lord.” (Genesis 4:1, 25, 26)
¶ God had turned an apparent defeat into a victory. Now He could reveal to Adam, Eve and all mankind how much He loved them. This would ultimately be seen when His only Son was given as the final sacrifice for the disobedience, rebellion, sin of mankind. God reached out to suffering man and loved him.
¶ When we are suffering, we want to be loved. When we are separated from friends, family, people, we want to be loved. We should look for signs of love from God and others. Neither will necessarily remove our misery. However, it is our opportunity to see the love and compassion of man and of God.
¶ How desperate the person who cries out, “Nobody cares! Nobody knows my sorrow; nobody shares my load.” More desperate is he who cannot recognize the love of God. He cannot cling to the love exhibited by God who sacrificed his only born Son so that the separation between man and God would be bridged. It takes faith, but not in a dreamy mist. It takes faith based on the facts of the recorded history of Jesus of Nazareth.
ADVERSITY IS FOR LOVE
¶Would love be possible without the presence of evil, adversity? If evil was absent, could love be known?
¶The question arises from seeking an answer for why God allowed evil in this world? More specifically, why did God create Satan with the ability to rebel?
¶Let us begin with the human condition. Is there a longing in the human heart to be loved? Yes! Humans want to be loved. However, it is harder to give love than to receive it. This emptiness waits to be filled, but to reach out and love somebody requires effort. Although a person can make a conscious effort to love others, he cannot demand others to love him/her. A person can only wait patiently to be loved.
¶There is a basic vacuum in mankind which wants to be filled with love. Love gives us significance, worthiness, acceptance. All of mankind wants to be loved. Some people say they have never known what it is to be loved. Their childhood may have been filled with abuse; their adult years full of guilt. Nevertheless, they long to experience love. The next question is, how did this love-vacuum come to be?
¶Was God referring to the love-vacuum when he said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper (or, companion) suitable for him.” (Genesis 2:18) Was man created with a love-vacuum? Or, was man created perfect, complete, lacking nothing?
¶God declared that he would make a helper for man but not until after man named all the animals. Then man knew that there was no suitable helper for him. (Genesis 2:20) There was nobody to come-along-side of Adam. Adam saw that all the animals had a mate. Perhaps some of them had offspring. He was alone. It was not a lack of love. God was there for him and with Adam’s best interests in mind. The end result was the creation of woman from part of man usually understood as the rib of man. She was also created perfect, complete, lacking nothing. She was created as the opposite sex of Adam, a suitable companion, or helper, for him.
¶If this satisfied the love-vacuum, then we would have no need for love today once a companion has been found. Even the union of husband and wife, or a man and a woman, becoming one flesh does not satisfy the love-vacuum. Both man and woman want love beyond cohabitation Furthermore, rape and sexual abuse does not satisfy both, perhaps neither, the perpetrator nor the victim. The victim is left feeling violated while the perpetrator struggles with guilt. It takes more than sexual intercourse to satisfy the love-vacuum. It is a lie, believed by many, that sexual union fills the love-vacuum.
¶But, isn’t sexual intercourse between husband and wife the pinnacle of love? Yes! However, that is assuming that all the barriers between them have been removed. For instance, if one partner has a feeling of resentment over an issue they have been arguing about, sexual intercourse does not remove the resentment and that partner, although willing, is quite likely to feel used. The best sexual intercourse between man and woman is when all issues have been resolved with nothing to separate them. Barriers, adversity can come between husband and wife hindering the pleasure of sexual intercourse.
¶God, who was alone before creating whatever exists or has existed, was, and is yet, free to do whatever he pleases. He is the Most High. This freewill was transferred to his first creation, the angels including Satan. Satan and some of the angels exercised this freedom by challenging the supremacy of their Creator. For this, they were doomed by God. Then God created man with a freewill.
¶Satan jumped on the opportunity. He tempted Adam and Eve and they fell to the temptation also placing Adam, Eve and their descendants under the curse of God. God’s freedom exercised in creating and given to the heavenly beings and man has now separated Satan, some angels, and mankind from their Creator, and from each other.
¶God yearns to eliminate the barrier. Satan and the fallen angels seek man’s worship hoping to satisfy the vacuum. Man longs for fellow man hoping to fill the void. This separation creates the love-vacuum.
¶Only the Creator has the power to overcome the barrier. He is most powerful and the Creator of both angels and man. Only the Creator can give this power to his creation as he wills, or chooses. Can the created repair the breech between themselves and their Creator? No, they cannot usurp the rule of their Creator. When God declares a breach between himself and his creation He alone is able to determine how to mend it. Assume, there is a righteous man who is perfect all the days of his life, except the day he told a lie. All of his righteousness falls short of perfection, even if only by the one flaw. The lie and its effects can never be erased regardless of what the man may try. The one lie prevents man from returning to the relationship which God had in the beginning with the first man. In the beginning it took only a one simple act of disobedience of God to doom mankind to death.
¶We know love when the barriers which separate us have been removed. God’s love is known when we recognize the sin which separates us from God and, then we realize what God has done to remove that barrier. He loves us and sacrificed his Son so that we might be reconciled to him. Removing the barrier for God meant sacrifice, forgiveness, and then restoration/reconciliation. We know how to love. The Creator has shown us, and we can follow his example.
¶Must a person believe in God to be loved? Obviously not! Certainly parents can love their children. A husband can love his wife. A wife can love her husband. We can also love others without believing in God. However, when it comes to bridging the gap which plagues relationships, sacrifice and forgiveness will come into play before restoration/reconciliation. One common solution buries the infraction in hope that it will never be resurrected again and again. Only forgiveness erases the infraction and it comes with the price of sacrifice. That sacrifice may be pride, prestige, or performance. For God, it was the life of his Son sacrificed on a cross, a cruel and unusual death, as the price for bridging the gap created by sin. God’s love reached out to bridge the gap and restore harmony in God’s relationship with man.
¶Overcoming the barrier, adversity, evil which separates us from our Creator and from each other is the evidence of love. Love was not created for adversity. It is discovered in adversity. It is out of adversity, evil, sin that love is revealed. Love is one of God’s attributes from the beginning.. He loves his creation. However, man and woman did not recognize his love until they disobeyed. Likewise, we do not know how much somebody loves us until we break their heart or, they accept us with all our faults. Without evil we would not know love.
¶Must evil continue in order for us to know love? The Apostle Paul said, “Shall we go on sinning that grace may abound? God forbid!” No we need not, should not, continue to find ways to separate us from one another just so we can know love again. Once the gap separating us has been spanned, we know love. Continuing to experience love by intentionally creating new barriers reveals a disrespect for the other person and for God.
¶Love is lost every time a new barrier is created. As long as the other party is willing to bridge the gap, removing whatever separates, forgiving the sin, see us through the adversity, we will continue to know their love. However, patience runs out, wisdom takes over and we risk rejection and a hardened heart towards each other which further separates us. What begins as small, relatively unimportant, issues to resolve, after time, build into a mountain of molehills too high to climb over, too wide to go around and too long to tunnel through. There are enough obstacles in normal life which separate us. Why would we want to create more?
¶Problems in marriage, among family, between friends, and with enemies, issues which separate us from one another and from God, are the seeds of love. They are opportunities for love to be made manifest. Adversity can drive us apart or cement us together. Which will it be? Part Two
Part Two
ADVERSITY AS SUFFERING
¶ When life circumstances are not what we like; when something goes wrong; when a problem separates us from a friend or lover; these are adversities. Such is suffering. An adversity is whatever there is that hinders us from living up to our expectations. Suffering is generally considered to be a physical problem. We suffer a broken leg, pneumonia, aids, cancer, heart attack, stroke, measles, cold, hay fever, asthma. We also suffer anger, hate, frustration, despair, grief, psychosis, neurosis, fear, anxiety, worry, guilt, loneliness. These are emotional sufferings.
¶ Gary Smalley says in The DNA of Relationships, “Stress is the gap between what was expected to happen and what is actually happening” (Tyndale House Publishers, 2004, p. 22). Stress is also suffering. It could be said that suffering is the gap between where we are and our ideal. Health is our ideal. Anything short of wholesome health is a disease, suffering, sickness. Physical stamina is our ideal. Anything which hinders that ideal is a handicap causing suffering. Marriage is our ideal. Anything which conflicts with our dream marriage causes suffering which is often the grounds for divorce, which causes more suffering. Having friends is our ideal. Yet, we still suffer from lack of friends or from disloyal friends. Call it stress. I will call it suffering that is the gap between our ideal and reality, between people in broken relationships, between health and sickness, between a sound mind and a troubled spirit. It is the adverse of what we desire, or adversity.
¶ Adversity is the gap, the barrier, the insurmountable mountain which separates us from what we desire. Webster’s 1970 edition of the New World Dictionary defines adversity as “(1) a state of wretchedness or misfortune; poverty and trouble (2) pl -ties an instance of misfortune or calamity.” It is derived from the Latin word which means” turned opposite to.” We are caught up in adversity when circumstances turn opposite to our desires. It becomes obvious when we are suffering.
¶ I have stated previously that adversity is for love and have given reasons why that is true. Now, I will say that suffering is for love.
¶ We do not like to suffer, neither do we like adversity. But, the reality is that both are going to a part of our experiences. We are going to suffer, if only from an illness. We are going to experience broken relationships, if only for a short duration. We are going to fall short of our ideals, if only occasionally. How then do we cope with adversity, suffering?
¶ If they are for love, as I have stated, then they become opportunities for us to know love. I did not say that they become opportunities for us to give love, but rather to receive love. There is an empathy for others experiencing a similar misery which could result in us loving them in their suffering. But, their suffering then becomes the opportunity for them to know love from us. Are we loved in return? Maybe, maybe not! Hopefully, when somebody knows about our misery they will reach out in love to help us through it. In that way, we know love. It is their misfortune which makes it possible for me to show them love, and visa versa.
¶ Pride standeth in the way. And its cohort, independence. Yes, we have a difficult time admitting that we are suffering, or in need of help. It is pride and the spirit of independence which keeps us from receiving love from others. “How are you today?” “Fine, thank you.”
¶ What if you really told the truth? “My mother just died this morning.” They would be stunned because that is not what the right, politically correct, answer.
¶ They might say, if they chose to allow the time, “Sorry to hear that. Could I bring a roast over for your supper tonight?”
¶ “Would you be so kind to do that? It would really help me out.” Guess what, you have just become the recipient of a little love. They could reach out with love because your pride never interfered with the truth. In order to make it possible for others to love us in our troubles, they must learn of our situation. Most often, they will need to learn from us about our misery. Pride must step aside. Independence must bend its knee.
¶ “But,” you say, “I don’t want to be one of those people who go around dumping a truck load of my troubles on everybody I see.” Use them sparingly. People cry out for attention by having lots of troubles. And, sometimes they are really hurting. Nobody wants to take the time to listen or the effort to show them a little love, especially if there is no social desirability in doing so. Consequently, they go on suffering with no relief, nobody to help them through it. At times they create a bigger and better story in hope that somebody will hear. You say, “I don’t want to be like them.”
¶ Better yet, it would be, when somebody recognizes our suffering by their own intuition. How pleasant to know a person who is so interested in us, so involved with us, that we do not have to tell them, others do not have to tell them, that we are suffering. May we become that person for others!
¶ God knows our sufferings, the adversities which confront us. He even knows when a sparrow falls and how many hairs are left on our head. The Apostle Paul said, “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19) When we are aware the sufferings of others, let us show them our love. Nobody else may notice their plight.
¶ People want to be loved. Why is it so hard to give them love in their difficult, trying situation?
Is it because they are always wanting it more and more? Is it because that it will demand too much of our time? Is it because they will just take advantage of us? Is it because we are starved for love and too proud to allow ourselves to admit it? When we are truly loved, there is an overflowing love available for others. That means in some point in time we found ourselves in a desperate situation, maybe more than once. Somebody came along side us and patiently helped us through the crisis.
¶ That somebody may have been God, or, as some prefer, Christ Jesus. We called upon him to help and he reached out with love to us in our need. He stood by us with encouraging words until we saw the light at the end of the tunnel. If it was God, he is still there ready to love us again and again. When we know that kind of love, it is easier for us to love others in their need.
¶ Why does God allow suffering? If He is all-powerful, he could eliminate suffering. This is often the reasoning of people who find no meaning in suffering. Frequently, they turn away from the possibility of the existence of God.
¶ God is all powerful because he is able to reach out to the victim with love. Consider the set back that Satan thought he made in the Garden of Eden when he succeeded in persuading Eve and Adam to eat from the forbidden tree. He had separated them from their Creator by their disobedience. Adam and Eve knew this because they did not want God to see them, nor did they want their nakedness to be seen. Suddenly, God was a threat to them. Suddenly, their nakedness was a threat to them. They attempted to hide from God and hide their nakedness.
¶ God found them. God exchanged their leafy coverings for a covering of skin from an animal. The skin would certainly do a better job of covering their nakedness and last longer. He did not strike them dead. However, there were consequences.
¶ They were driven out and barred from returning to the Garden and the Tree of Life. Eve’s, or woman’s desire would be for Adam, or man. There would be pain in childbirth. Adam would no longer tend the Garden without effort but would painfully toil the ground outside of Eden.. Now he would toil against weeds until he dies returning to the dust of the earth from which he was taken. (Genesis 3:14-24) Then we read that Adam (sexually) knew Eve who conceived and gave birth to two sons, Cain and Abel. Eve considered herself blessed by God. When Cain murdered Abel, Eve conceived again and another son, Seth, was born. Once again, Adam and Eve considered themselves as having found favor with God. “At that time men began to call on (proclaim) the name of the Lord.” (Genesis 4:1, 25, 26)
¶ God had turned an apparent defeat into a victory. Now He could reveal to Adam, Eve and all mankind how much He loved them. This would ultimately be seen when His only Son was given as the final sacrifice for the disobedience, rebellion, sin of mankind. God reached out to suffering man and loved him.
¶ When we are suffering, we want to be loved. When we are separated from friends, family, people, we want to be loved. We should look for signs of love from God and others. Neither will necessarily remove our misery. However, it is our opportunity to see the love and compassion of man and of God.
¶ How desperate the person who cries out, “Nobody cares! Nobody knows my sorrow; nobody shares my load.” More desperate is he who cannot recognize the love of God. He cannot cling to the love exhibited by God who sacrificed his only born Son so that the separation between man and God would be bridged. It takes faith, but not in a dreamy mist. It takes faith based on the facts of the recorded history of Jesus of Nazareth.
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