Suffering

I wrote the blurb below in my personal blog earlier this evening and Israel asked me to share it here. It is very personal but I share it with the hope that perhaps it will encourage those of you who read the blog who are also facing trials.


Suffering

"Ask yourself this question: What kind of a following would result if the sole reason for the affection toward the leader is that he provides his followers with bread?" asks Ravi Zacharias in his Jesus Among Other Gods.

Here Zacharias specifically addresses the nature of the temptation Satan posed to Jesus when he asked Him to turn the stone into bread in Matthew 4:3. Zacharias directs us toward the idea that if Jesus turned the stone into bread or for that matter if He defeated the Roman Empire or healed every ailment and disease, what would be the real motivation behind the people's affection? Would it even truly be affection or merely a response of self-love?

This line of reasoning causes me to wonder: Has Christ allowed my suffering or perhaps even the suffering of humanity throughout history at least in part to reveal our hearts' intentions? Does our response to suffering demonstrate who our true first love is - our own selves or our Creator-Redeemer?

In that way, is suffering a type of Isaac in that like Abraham's call to sacrifice his only son to demonstrate His undying love for God, suffering exposes the object of our affection - our comfort and ease or our Savior? If so, are we able to follow in the footsteps of Abraham who chose to obey God in the face of his tremendous pain and confusion?

Desperately I want God to heal my daugher. Yet more than anything, I want my family to be a family that loves God despite the trials, in the midst of our pain. Should we accept good from God, and not accept adversity (Job 2:10)? I pray we will always echo Job's cry by saying, "Though He slay us, yet will we trust Him" (Job 13:15).