Gosh, with a mesSage like this, I'd think that there'd be a lot of business in Darfur and Rwanda right now.
Y'all! You're not thinking right. So your baby's arm was cut off by some lunatic, so what? You're suffering is because you have the wrong world view. Now just sit down a minute and I'll explain the right world view to you, and your suffering will go away. Of course, you have to figure out how to explain it to your baby."
I think we might have to review our thinking on suffering. Should Jesus just have said to the ruler of the synagogue, "So your daughter's dying. But how are you thinking?" Why didn't the lady who touched the fringe of his garment just experience a sudden clarity of thought?
Your post reminds me of Rev. Wurmbrand, a Lutheran Pastor, who spent 14 years in captivity, and whom Bishop Sheen called “my very good friend”. When beaten severely by his Communist tormentors, he was then given a mirror and his persecutors said to him: “Now—do you think you look like your Jesus?” And he responded: “Yes, now I do look like Him.”
I was privileged to meet Rev. Wurmbrand.
I also often think of Saul on the road to Damascus meeting Christ, Who said to him: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?”
Paul was persecuting the new believers. Were they Christ that he was told he was persecuting? If we are told later by Paul (Saul) that “we are the Body of Christ member for member”, then there is a profund mystery here as regards human suffering under the “New and Eternal Covenant”.
Isn’t it Scripturally sound to understand that our human sufferings have eternal value and that “if we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him?”
If we allow Him to come into our hearts as He promised, (”My Father and I will come and make our abode in you”) then our sufferings, offered to us by His will and providence, have infinite value. They are not lost sufferings as would be the case of those who would curse because of what they suffer.
“Master, remember me when You come into your kingdom”.
“Amen, amen I say to you, this day you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
If it weren't for this large font, I'd probably quote the entire chapter 11 of Hebrews which is a testimony of faith. Quite a few are named (Abraham, Moses, etc.) as receiving miracles upon standing by faith in the face of great challenges.
At the end, though, I find the phrase emphasized below most telling as it is applied to those who were not named, who stood in faith and mostly were not spared:
Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of [cruel] mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and [in] mountains, and [in] dens and caves of the earth.
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he... - Proverbs 23:7