Suffering
We are doing a study called Job: A Story of Unlikely Joy by Lisa Harper (Lifeway Press 2018) in our Bible study at church. Job is a book about suffering. It tells us that the "health and wealth" gospel has been around for a long time and was just as much a lie then as it is now. This week, we have been looking at "wound care" using Elihu's discourses from chapters 32-37.
I have been struggling with one main thing this week - what is suffering? Job suffered the loss of his children, his wealth, and his health, not even to mention the loss of respect and friendship that seems to go along with those. His were huge, obvious sufferings. Lisa Harper mentions some huge, obvious traumas in her life as she discusses these sufferings. But what if we haven't had the huge, obvious sufferings? Personally, I think I have lived a pretty charmed life. I was never abused in any way. My parents love me and are still together after almost 48 years (if I am calculating correctly, it is 6:30 in the morning😊). I got to go to good schools, had some great friends, and am married to a great guy with great kids. So does that mean I have never suffered? Does that mean I don't have wounds that need proper care? No. Suffering covers a long spectrum. The dictionary defines suffering as "the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship." This doesn't mean it has to be a huge pain, distress, or hardship, it could just be that you have something small distressing you for a short time. Yes, huge, obvious trauma is major suffering, but I don't think the rest of us need to feel guilty for feeling distress in smaller things or to feel like we can't have a great testimony because our life has been relatively easy. God does amazing, wonderful, healing things in ALL our lives, if we let Him. Sometimes, I think we forget to be honest about these smaller sufferings and we let others believe that only people who have the big, obvious traumas in life really need Jesus. Do we distort the gospel by focusing on the big and the obvious? Should we also address the small and the hidden? I think so, what do you think? The gospel is for ALL people, big wounds or little, big sins or little, because God doesn't look at "big" and "little" like we do. He just sees wounds and sins that need healing.
What do you think? Do we focus so much on huge, obvious suffering that we forget that we, our friends, and our neighbors also have smaller sufferings that need Jesus to perform His careful wound care?
I have been struggling with one main thing this week - what is suffering? Job suffered the loss of his children, his wealth, and his health, not even to mention the loss of respect and friendship that seems to go along with those. His were huge, obvious sufferings. Lisa Harper mentions some huge, obvious traumas in her life as she discusses these sufferings. But what if we haven't had the huge, obvious sufferings? Personally, I think I have lived a pretty charmed life. I was never abused in any way. My parents love me and are still together after almost 48 years (if I am calculating correctly, it is 6:30 in the morning😊). I got to go to good schools, had some great friends, and am married to a great guy with great kids. So does that mean I have never suffered? Does that mean I don't have wounds that need proper care? No. Suffering covers a long spectrum. The dictionary defines suffering as "the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship." This doesn't mean it has to be a huge pain, distress, or hardship, it could just be that you have something small distressing you for a short time. Yes, huge, obvious trauma is major suffering, but I don't think the rest of us need to feel guilty for feeling distress in smaller things or to feel like we can't have a great testimony because our life has been relatively easy. God does amazing, wonderful, healing things in ALL our lives, if we let Him. Sometimes, I think we forget to be honest about these smaller sufferings and we let others believe that only people who have the big, obvious traumas in life really need Jesus. Do we distort the gospel by focusing on the big and the obvious? Should we also address the small and the hidden? I think so, what do you think? The gospel is for ALL people, big wounds or little, big sins or little, because God doesn't look at "big" and "little" like we do. He just sees wounds and sins that need healing.
What do you think? Do we focus so much on huge, obvious suffering that we forget that we, our friends, and our neighbors also have smaller sufferings that need Jesus to perform His careful wound care?
Yes, I think the little wounds are misunderstandings that have never been corrected or things we have not applied Jesus to.
ReplyDeleteThe little foxes that spoil things. We were taught that we just need to let go of these insignificant things.
They need to be dealt with or confessed properly. They are things that hurt us and don't allow God to bind up the wound.
In South Carolina, we have a kind of grass that grows like a crawling vine. One day, I was trying to get the grass out of the edge of my flower beds and I was struck by the picture. How we need to carefully weed the sin out of our lives each day so that it doesn't overtake our fruitful garden! That can apply to bitterness from little hurts, too. Hebrews 12:14-15 says "Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled," Many people are hurt when we let that root of bitterness (or sin) grow.
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