Posted on 08/10/2014 9:31:05 AM PDT by OneVike
Few seem to have good answers for the question:
“Why didn’t God just create us so that we would never have to experience pain, suffering, or sadness?”
After all, God has the power to make the world free of evil, yet He chose instead to make us creatures with free will. Thus, free will was the door left open for the possibility of evil entering our lives.
What is the purpose of pain, suffering, and evil? Why does God allow humans, who were made in His image, to live on a planet where evil abounds? God could have made us perfect without the ability to sin, and we would have never known pain and suffering.
We would be like Chatty Cathy dolls–just pull the string and watch us do and say whatever we were programed. Is that the kind of life you would wish to live? Well, obviously God did not think so either. That’s the short answer to why God created us with free will.
With free will came the possibility that Adam and Eve might disobey God of their own volition and partake of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. Well, thanks to some coaxing from Satan, Eve ate the fruit and offered some to Adam. The first two humans that God created exercised the right of choice that God had given them. Because they didn’t obey God’s command, sin entered the universe and that sin was handed down to every human who was born of man. All of us, believers and non-believers alike, wrestle with the daily struggles of the “Adam and Eve” within us.
Christ died on the cross so that, if we believe in Him, we can have eternal life. However, just because we gave our life to Christ, does not mean we are immunized from the pain and suffering of this world. This is why so many Christians inevitably ask the question, “Why am I suffering God? Why do my loved ones suffer?” What if on the day we accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior, we were given God’s total and complete protection, so nothing bad ever happened to us again?
“Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face. Job 1:9-11
Can you imagine what would happen if God did put a hedge about us on every side? Would not the people of the world who do not know Christ, say:
“So what, that you love Go. Anybody would love God if He protected them the way He does you. I’m not impressed. Your God doesn’t offer me anything; I live in the real world.”
What if those people, who watched us suffer, saw the way we dealt with the same issues of pain, suffering and disappointment as they deal with, and we showed an example of looking to our Father in heaven with love and gratefulness? His loving mercy allows us to be free enough to learn and grow through our trials and tribulations, like the......
(Excerpt) Read more at therelevantchristianmagazine.com ...
I am so sorry to hear that you are having a rough summer. I lost my dearly. dearly beloved husband to a heart attack quite suddenly this summer. He was only 61. Finances and business matters are a very major mess. What the Lord has been showing me, and what this summer is really driving home is that it is not stuff, or people, or health that gives us true peace and joy. It is the Lord Jesus Christ having his way in our lives.
In God's providential and perfect care of his people, he is always working so that we are being conformed to the image of his son. The lyrics that the Lord just keeps putting on my heart these last very painful 6 weeks are:
Let goods and kindred go
This mortal life also (as in my lifestyle)
The body they may kill
God's Truth abideth still
His kingdom is forever.
No matter how much the hurt, my soul is at peace. It was the minute I found him because I know that God takes perfect care of his people. So much so that Jesus suffered and died for us. As great is my grief right now, I know that it is just a portion of the grief that the Lord feels for the sins that cause separation of his people from him, much less that same pain that Christ endured for us.
In the end run - To God be the glory.
Think of what you consider to be the greatest human qualities: courage, compassion, friendship, the ability to heal, etc. These qualities, and others, demonstrate the highest value of mankind. None of these qualities can exist without adversity, or, at least, the qualities are enhanced by adversity. There is no courage without conflict. There is no compassion without sadness or strife. There is no healing without sickness or injury.
God did not create a “flat” earth. There are mountains and valleys, hills and plains. The weather changes. There is calm and there are storms.
Partially true because of sin. Before then fall of man the world was different and there was no pain, no sorrow, no sickness, no death.
No diversity existed because the universe was in perfect harmony with God. hen things became as they are now. So to day we have one because of the other is partially true.
We have one because we chose diversity over perfection, and with diversity comes trials and tribulations. But not by God’s choice, ours.
I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your husband.
Sixty-one is waaayyy too young.
You are so right that all that counts is Jesus.
So sorry to hear about your husband dying. Part of my story is on my FR homepage.
Try this weekend -- it can be so healing. Perhaps there is one in your area.
Beginning Experience, a peer facilitated weekend for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one
God is a great teacher if you pay attention. He must get disgusted with having to teach the same lessons over and over every few generations.
I know He has a sense of humor since He has allowed me to walk the earth. I can see Him on His throne looking down at our unending Darwin Awards as they happen, I hope he finds some humor in our antics, not just sadness.
....”To have free will, and to be able to actually make choices implies that we might make bad choices. And surprise! We do make bad choices. Then we suffer. If God wanted to eliminate all suffering, He would have to eliminate all freedom. He makes a choice on our behalf, and that choice is to allow us to choose as well, because we are made in His image”.....
Yes...and just to add to this....as Christians we never get the full measure of what our bad decisions deserve...God shows us great Mercy.
I agree but it is not always an easy thing to discern....some things have nothing to do with our choices...like the body aging, something we cannot escape from. Other times it's like a boomerang..it comes back on us. Giving thanks is not easy but I have learned to thank him when I don't understand because he knows what these things or happenings are and what purpose he will make of them.
Because God is not a rapist. Love is voluntary. Compulsory ‘love’ is rape. Our ability to go through life, discover God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and choose to believe in His love for us, and how He expressed that love for us is a gift, not a curse.
That life is painful is a choice our parents made for us (Adam and Eve), and one we make for our children. That’s not God’s fault.
Interesting, because up until about 6 years ago I never had problems from reacting to food in a bad way, but since then i find myself breaking out in hives from time to time.
I am currently going through all the tests and studies to find out what is causing them So far the hives have been in a rash form or big welts. Nothing seems to make sense, it never happens under the same environment, and it is getting worse.
I was recently given a couple of EpiPens for emergency in case my throat get swollen from the hives.
As it is I have never fully recovered from the spinal surgery I had two years ago. I now wish I never agreed to it. For me, God has allowed me to learn from my wife.
For 27 years she has been in a wheelchair from the accident we were in when we were still dating. Seeing how she has persevered gives me the strength I need to continue.
God bless you, and I will keep you in my prayers
I will keep you in my prayers. I am 58 next month, and also I agree that 61 is much too young.
Being a paraplegic, my wife would be forced to sell the home and move into town while hoping for others to help her with her needs.
I will pray for you in your situation, and my condolences on losing you husband.
All we need to remember is that Our Abba, Father will work out all things for good - even if we cannot see it that way.
In the book of Job, God uses Satan himself to work righteousness in Job and get Job to see himself as God does.
We may not understand why God allows children to be beheaded by animals hell bent on subjugation, we have to trust He has the end-result in perfect sight and that everything works towards that end.
For our days are like the grass - and one day - everything we know and is, will melt with fervent heat. This flesh is not meant to last. It never was.
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