Читать книгу Why God Wills You to Suffer - William Lolli - Страница 4

The question ‘why there is suffering’ is a universal-unknown to the whole of mankind.

This book will be short and to the point. There will be no lengthy, glib stories; or “God spoke to me” declarations of unique or special revelation. This book declares what is already known, but is seldom made knowable because our culture, our media, our pulpits, our intellects, and our constant pursuit in seeking relief from suffering prohibit it from joining its truth with our hearts.

Yes, this book is about my personal journey and the conclusions I had drawn from Scripture, so someone could say it’s all my opinion. But I have yet to find anyone who was able to counter my conclusions with either scriptural truths or observable facts.

This ‘truth’ that is seldom made knowable is a difficult juxtaposition of the obvious world of suffering in which we live and the notion that a ‘good’ God divinely wills this suffering to exist.

To the secular person, the coexistence of universal suffering and a ‘God who loves you’ is worthy of mockery. To the believer who cannot reconcile God and suffering, there can be nothing ahead except endless moral confusion, self-blame, grief, fear, quixotic purges of real or imagined vices, feelings of abandonment, trials of faith, and still more suffering.

Christ called upon each man to carry his own cross and follow Him. Luke 9:23. Paul in Romans praised the power of suffering to transform, Romans 5:1-5. Yet, few take these charges seriously. Most gloss over this Scripture and look for relief from the burden of a personal cross and seek another way to follow Christ.

The fact is that the desire for, and the pursuit of, the relief from suffering is the fundamental basis for cowardice, both in believers and non-believers alike. Not that the desire for relief from suffering always produces cowardice, but it illustrates the divide between the outcomes of Romans 5:1-5 and the path toward cowardice.

As much as a non-believer resists the notion of his own sinfulness before God, so do typical 21st century American Christian evangels resist the knowledge that God wills suffering to reach its fullest, divinely ordained measure in the life of a believer.

Carrying your own cross has wide and deep implications. It is not isolated to a God-ordained endurance race, though your life is an endurance race. It is not about self-sin recognition or self-repentance. [Escaping the power of sin is not a do-it-yourself exercise.] It is not about keeping yourself Holy. [You can’t.] It is not about making yourself pure. [You can’t do that either.]

Carrying your own cross is not an option. It is a mandate. But what is it? The way of the cross is the way of the suffering of God in your life. This is not double-talk or gibberish. To be more clear: The way of the cross, the suffering of God, is the inner, moral suffering a person experiences as he or she lives their lives in this fallen world. Physical suffering, and all its variants, are manifestations of the greater, more universal, moral suffering.

Without the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, the ‘way of the cross’ cannot be easily recognized [discernment being a gift of the Holy Spirit]. This is because we ourselves are fallen and live in a fallen world; the combination of which dims the truth of our moral condition.

Without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, which makes clear the purpose of the cross in our lives, our human hearts tend to seek easier paths.

The influence of the natural man nudges us away from the suffering cross, and our lives are spent looking for that ‘other way’. Even for the most devout believer, that ‘other way’ can be found masked in religious theology: Many wait for the Rapture as a way out. Many seek the Lord’s return as a hope of relief. Many find temporary distraction by the emotional entertainment in our church worship services. Many use prayer only as a petition platform. Many dream of the heavenly existence in a new body. In all these things, the desire for worldly relief from the heaviness of this present life takes the forefront. Few accept the inescapable reality of suffering. Few take on the cross as their own.

But relief from suffering in this life is not the Will of God. If it were, we would not suffer.