Thoughts on Suffering from Life Action

I thought I'd share some thoughts from the Life Action teaching, mixed with some things that God added through thought and meditation on the subject of suffering.

Suffering is an avoided concept in Scripture.  It's not pretty.  No one wants to do it (certainly not me).  I really don't like that this is a part of Scripture, but it is and it is a part of being a Christian.

I think we think we can ignore it and it will got away, then life will be easier and everything will be fine, but that's not true.  Jesus said that if you are to follow Him, you'll have troubles, period...going to happen.  That signifies that "sin" is in the world...it's a given.  Things don't follow God, there are problems.

If you ignore it, it will do you know good, because you'll have troubles and life will be hard, but you still won't get the benefit of suffering.  1 Peter 2:20-21 says this

20 But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it?

 In other words, when you go against God or do something that is unwise that God has told you not to do or not told you to do and life is tough...that's not suffering...that is "conflict" and there is no good in you toughing out that.  That's foolish.  That's natural consequence of refusing to acknowledge and follow God.  If you don't follow Christ at all and your marriage is in a shambles, that's not suffering for Jesus.  That's trying to do something in a way and for a reason that it was never intended for, because marriage doesn't work without Christ in the center...because he's necessary for the reason it exists.  I've heard it said best that "Marriage doesn't exist to make us happy, but to make us holy."  Yep, not so we can have kids, grow old and die together and always have a date on New Year's Eve.

Also, it's not "chastisement"...you have participated in something so long that God is allowing extra consequences to come to you because He's trying to steer you away from damaging behavior, thoughts or directions that are hurting you and dishonoring Him...that's not "suffering" and it holds no benefit to keep doing the thing that causes the "chastisement".  Chastisement is meant to train us, but it's not punitive...we aren't "paying for our sins" in the global sense, THAT is more horrible and at a greater price than we can pay.  Jesus did that...He took the ultimate punishment, this is God trying to get us back on the right way by making the wrong way less attractive, but ultimately, we'll make that choice to keep enduring the harshness or turn from it and experience healing and peace.

Then Peter writes...

But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.A)"> 

But suffering is different.  Suffering is when you do right for God and things aren't just rosy and wonderful and you trust God is right anyway...that's a good thing.  It's not just that God is proud of that, but also that it is beneficial for you.  1 Peter 1:7 says these type of trials worth "more than gold"...so basically, these type of sufferings are more valuable than any amount of money for you.  It's amazing that a lot of the time, we miss these trials for 15/hour or whatever the next promotion pays....or we actually PAY money not to have them.

It's like working out...working out is hard...it hurts and sometimes you get injured doing it and you need healing, but it's healthy for you.  You HAVE to carve time in your schedule for it, it's not just an easy thing always.  The same is true in our faith...suffering is God's workout for us.  It's difficult, it's a moment that our weaknesses are exposed, the places that we need help and we are to cry out to God, when we fail Him or when facing a struggle, that we need Him and to "lift our weight" to Him.  How?  By trusting that if we follow what He has said for our lives in His Word, that He will provide...

If you don't think suffering is for you as a Christian, then you might want to mark vs 21 out of your Bible.  It says this...

21 To thisB)"> you were called,C)"> 

Bad start...to "what", to this type of "suffering"...that's what Christ "called" you to do.  These are things like "pressure" or "tough schedules" or "struggles" with things that you don't want to believe or do or sickness or death or whatever...even against the desire to do the "easy" things that aren't of God.  These struggles change us.

I always love the excuse that "God made me this way, so He meant for me to be this way"...what a completely illogical argument in Scripture.  When we accept Christ, we are to become a "new creation", because what we were is in conflict with God...  I want to say "Who is this magical, mythical person who becomes a Christian and just does everything, thinks every way, follows every desire, that there were following before?  They don't exist"... and the ones that do AREN'T Christians, according to Scripture.

I think about a friend who met a very needy person at work one day...and as unattractive and hard (and honestly, repulsive) as this needy person's situation was, my friend saw this as God's call for him to change it.  He took her into his home and treated her as his child.  He clothed her, washed her, cleaned up after all the things that she couldn't do for herself because of her physical limitations...it changed him...no, God used it to change him.. 

When she died recently, he said afterwards to me "she was never a burden"...no way?  If I were to list the energy draining schedule,tasks and the sacrifices that he willingly made, when no one else would, not even her family would...you'd call him a liar, but he was "dead serious" and I believe him.  

Why?  

Because in embracing the hardship, God had strengthened him, given him purpose, taught him about loving people, added to him all along the way and made him into something that he was not...God upgraded him.  

I seriously doubt that he would call what he did "suffering", he'd laugh at me if I told him that, but it was, but he found it.  He's already considering the next person he should take in and how God has prepared him for that next experience through this one...when I would be taking a breath, he's raring to jump back into it, because he found the value of suffering.

We should all learn from his example with the sufferings we are to face in our lives...

Sufferings are also things like when God allows a hardship in our life as a test to see where we are, to give us hope in how we've grown while pointing out where we still need Him to function properly ("I need You."). 

Sometimes, these are attacks from Satan that God allows to reach us so that He can use the hardship to better us...and that absolutely must burn the enemy.  When we submit to these and see them as they are, it's like our opponent keeps shooting at his basket and the ball just curves in the air and goes to the other end of the court and goes in ours...that would be maddening for a basketball player if that ever happened.

Then the verse ends with this...

...because Christ suffered for you,D)"> leaving you an example,E)"> that you should follow in his steps.

So this is all because Christ suffered for you...He didn't ask you to do anything on the scale of what He had to do and He never will, but He made the biggest sacrifice first.

Peter points out that this was an EXAMPLE.  That's different.  An example is something that you are to look at to understand in a greater, more vivid way whatever you are given to do is supposed to be like.  It's a picture and suffering is a part of that.

It's an example and in that, we'll follow in His steps.  What we see from Jesus is just not a beaten man, but who at the pinnacle of His suffering, was strengthen and motivated through joy, while being on the cross (Hebrews 12:2)...  We'll never endure what He did, but He proved that joy is possible in the midst of suffering for Christ.

Suffering is necessary, but not wanted.  It's vital, but hated...but unless we embrace it and look at it purposefully, we will be the ones who are left without blessings that God intended for us.

Words to the Wise: Leaving conflict behind

When talking about leaving a tough situation with a friend, this wise friend threw out the metaphor of leaving "firing shots over your shoulder" and how that's how some leave tough situations, trying to inflict pain on others as they leave.  I really latched onto that picture of a cowboy riding away from a fight on a horse in the old West.  At full gallop, the cowboy would look back and fire a couple of shots at the enemy as he left trying to pick off a bad guy or to do as much damage as he could.  After thinking on that picture and had some thoughts about parallels that are flaws in the "shooting over the shoulder" strategy in leaving a tough situation. 

One, shooting over the shoulder isn't very accurate, especially speeding away on a horse, so they never hit what they intended to hit.  They don't really ever damage any of their targets.  When you leave, those shots never make it back to those that hurt you, so they are usually completely oblivious to your gunshots...or one might get through out of nowhere and then everyone around wonders why in the world you'd be so cruel to do that, because those innocent bystanders in close proximity have no knowledge of the situation.

Two, because they have no accuracy, they usually cause damage that they never intended.  The only possible people who get "hit" by things are those people that those fleeing on horseback have a relationship with that have deal with them.  Think about it...you don't hang out with the folks that hurt you, you hang out with the folks that love you.  Whether a new relationship or an old one (pre-dating their hurt), friends are forced to relive the pain with the rider time after time.  It might be a relationship from the place of pain that didn't have a part in the hurt, but constantly feels the need to either apologize or exist in a vat of hard feelings against others because they are have to interact with them.  It could be the rider's spouse or children or just good friends..they take a bullet(s)...either way, you end up really just shooting your own team.

Three, they never really truly leave the situation.  Getting farther and farther away, as they lose perspective on things, the details of what happened gets distorted and out of focus.  Their attention is focused on something they can't control and they waste their time with things they can't/wouldn't/won't fix.  The facts just get worse, like a caught fish just gets bigger each time you tell the "story", and they just stay one step away from the situation and the hurt.

In keeping their focus on what's behind, they are not able to deal adequately with the present.  It's like they ride away believing a rope is tethered to them and to the situation and to them, trapping them to that moment in time.  At any second, they are prepared to teleport themselves back to that moment in time, any time someone will listen to them re-tell the injustice.  They blame those in that place or those from that situation for never letting them leave, but, if they were to step back and examine the two ends of the "rope" carefully...they'd find one end in that situation just laying on the ground and the other end, not tied to them, but just grasped in their clenched fist.

Consequently, because they are ignoring the present, they also are unprepared for the future.  They usually crash into and destroy something in their future because they were unprepared for it, because they spent too much of their life looking back.  They never leave the past behind.

Ultimately, the greatest damage the rider ever does is to himself.  This damage usually becomes something that they blame on the tough situation and people in their past that just "ruined" them.  The truth is that it is their own toxicity that is eating them away from the inside.  It will continue to eat away long after the memory of the past has faded into nothingness, because anything that remotely resembles the pain becomes their new nemesis, drawing their ire and judgment.  Truly, the most dangerous and unhealthy thing of the situation is something that they carried away inside themselves...the inability to be secure in who they are and move on to the future that Christ provides.

Want to know if this is you?
What's the big hurt in your past?  Like the ol' "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop" cartoon...how many comments does it take you to get full on mad about that situation/person?
Do you refer to it often? 
Do people know where you are going very early in the conversation?
Does it drive your decisions now?  Do you find yourself spending a lot of time building defenses to avoid getting in that situation again?  (Nothing wrong with avoiding a bad situation, but are you obsessed with doing so?)
Do you see trails leading to a repeat of that situation often?
And a real situation arises like it...how fast do you get into full strike mode?

Word to those who wish to be wise in their life...don't be this person, that's not Christlike, and living this way accomplishes nothing.  Drop the rope, leave it behind, forgive and set yourself free.