Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Why does God allow suffering?  It is a question many people ask especially when they cannot explain why such sadness is allowed to happen.  If God loves us why does He allow especially His beloved to suffer such horrific things?

In virtually every book in the Bible there is suffering.  It is through this hardship that makes these biblical characters stand out.  One of the more classic examples of this is Job.  Job was a godly man who loved God with all of his heart.  He knew God was behind his successes and praised God for it all.  The worst thing imaginable was allowed to happen to Job.  He lost his children, his land, animals, and virtually every earthly success he had was gone.  As if that was not enough God allowed him to be so sick that even his body was attacked with painful sores.
"So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.  Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes" (Job 2:7-8).

Everything Job had worked so hard to attain was gone in an instant.  With these painful sores that covered his body he was unable to get up and start rebuilding with what was left.  How often when we are going through suffering of our own that we too feel like this.  We may not have the physical sores but the grief we are experiencing makes it feels like we are too weak to do anything.

At this point Job had to continue to surrender to God's Will even when his closest friends and his own wife told him to "curse God and die".

The question we have to ask ourselves is what will have to happen before we are willing to surrender to God's Will?  What will it take for us to open our hearts to God?  God is just waiting for us to lay it all at his feet.  So when will you let the love He has for you penetrate your heart?

Through suffering God is telling us "open your heart and let me in".  
Matthew 11:30 says, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

So why was Job allowed to suffer?  Well even Job who followed God's commands was allowed to face such extreme suffering--but why?  To allow God's authority--His love to take center stage.

Following God's commands does not prevent us from experiencing hardship.  In fact God's strongest soldiers are the ones who follow His commands--yet they experience the harshest suffering because He has made them for such a time as this.

God is in control even in the midst of the worst loss--the worst suffering imaginable.  Even though He has allowed this He has built up His sons and daughters to endure the hardship they face.  As children of our Heavenly Father we have taken on this pain to glorify our Father in Heaven.

Matthew 6:33 states, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well."

This is so because we know there will be a day when we will rejoice in Heaven knowing there will be no more pain.  God has a special plan for all of creation.  Many times our purpose does not make sense to us especially during these hard times.  There are also other times when during these hardships we find out not everyone is a believer.  God has a plan for them too!!

As humans we can't imagine how God could provide for us if He allowed such pain.  It is during this time His glory shines.  His beauty and authority become a reality and unbelievers can see what it looks like to surrender to God's holy Will.

By doing this we are allowing God to be the true Leader, Our Reedmer who is guiding us to where He needs us.

Heartbroken: Jesus is the Cause and the Cure

I bet you all though I was done talking about LOVE!!!  Love is the most important thing to me!!  My prayer to God has always been "Lord, break my heart for what breaks yours".

Filling the Void

To be Loved

To be Accepted

To be Recognized

Why do we crave love so much???  Love is always the solution to the problem.
What is our motivation to seek things we think will make us happy?  Busy lives, pets, drugs, alcohol, pushing others away?  When we do these things how long does this satisfaction last?  What do we do next when that thing doesn't work?  When we seek to fill this huge void with temporary fixes it is like we are seeking a superficial high to feel like we matter.

When did we first notice this void in our life?  It can be like a trickling effect of unrealistic expectations on other humans.  Humans are not perfect yet we expect perfection especially from close people to us like our parents.  We are constantly expecting a certain perfection.  One of my most favorite quotes to prove this point is from C.S. Lewis:

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”

We have this expectation of perfection and seek this perfection in our lives but there is only one man who can fill this and that is Jesus.

This void is also our greatest inherent desire which is to be LOVED.  When I say Love I mean it on much more than just a physical level.  This desire can only be remedied by Jesus!

We know we need love to survive like we know we need air to breathe and a lack of love results in feelings of rejection, depression, sickness, lack of motivation to do anything, suicidal-no reason to live, alone, and worthlessness.

We determine how loved we are by the physical evidence of the way others show that love to us.  It also determines if we love others and furthermore, it determines if we respect others.

As Christians we are loved!  We have been set apart because HE loves us.  He wants us to seek Him so that this life is nourished.  We will always be lost unless we depend on God to quench this thirst. We are seeking a big streak dinner--when it's only prepared by God.  He can satisfy this desire to be loved at such an extreme level it can only be felt by the heart.

Alone

Today Isaac and I tried out a new church.  It is a very large church for our area so I was surrounded by a lot of people but honestly I have never felt so alone.

Moving 3,000+ miles to our current home has been some what of a culture shock.  We lived on an island that felt more like an isolated Asian country far removed from the average American life.  It was a culture shock when we moved to that island and now I'm experiencing another culture shock.  It's weird I cannot just go get some of my favorite Pho Ga on a rainy day.  It's also weird that everyone I talk to speaks English as their first language.

I sometimes feel alone because I don't have friends here yet.  Other times I feel so alone within the body of Christ.  I feel like I don't fit in anywhere.  It's especially hard to explain when people notice how much I stand out in their community and they know I'm not from here.  I don't fit in a nice little package of what a nice Christian woman is.  I have my own style and I'm not about conforming to fashion in order to fit in.  God made me different, very different.  Both in the Spiritual/Intellectual and Fashion sense.

Honestly, my home is technically I suppose where I was born (Michigan) but that does not feel like home either.  It never really has.  I always felt like the black sheep of the family.  One of my Aunts has wanted me to come home and get into a normal life routine but in actuality that will never happen.  You can't cage a bird who wants, who NEEDS to fly.

Societies view of normal was not my idea of normal.  I didn't like the "normal" I saw so I wanted to created my own normal.

People think I am crazy for following my heart but I don't care at this point.  I'd rather be seen as crazy but have a purposeful life given to me by God than to live a stagnant life that leads to unhappiness, discontentment, and pretty much living in the Flesh as stated in Galatians 5.

Galatians 5:16-26

¹⁶ So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 

¹⁷ For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever^[c] you want. 

¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

¹⁹ The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 

²¹and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 

²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 

²⁵ Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 

²⁶ Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Following my heart, my love of Jesus Christ is the only way I want to live.  I want to love as it states above loving in the Spirit and not the flesh.

"He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."  (Luke 10:2)

I'm wrecked

I hear the term "I'm so wrecked" by a lot of Christians after hearing a powerful sermon or testimony.  My question is how do you define wrecked?  Is it something that just makes you emotional one day and the next day you are back to your old self.  Or is it such a powerful wrecking of the soul that you are never again the same?

I hope you experience such an intense wrecked feeling that it changes you forever.  As The Bible is written with many powerful words and tones it is not meant for it to only affect you for a short time.  The Bible was written in a very specific way to wreck you to your core.  Why else would God put such intense examples if it would not give us a "heart attack" so to speak.

I recently wrote a paper about my Theistic Worldview as a Christian.  I was lead to one of my favorite author's quotes on pain:

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”  -C.S. Lewis (Weight of Glory)

After reading that I felt God was showing me the purpose of pain.  Pain that we experience has to be so heart shocking that it causes us to desire a new heart.  

Take for instance the process of defibillation.  This process is used to restore the heartbeat and allows to shock the dead heart back into life.  How often do we need God to do this to our own heart?

To be honest I've been wrecked in the past but tonight I was really wrecked....no joke.  I will never be the same thanks to the The Holy Spirit coming alive in us.  The Holy Spirit can transform you in such a supernatural way that can only be described by God.

Are you ready to fully accept what He has for you??  I don't know about you but I am ready to give up whatever I have to in order to live with The Holy Spirit.  No holding back!!!