Psalm 6
In Psalm 6, the psalmist is praying for deliverance from physical and mental suffering. Christians often refer to the sufferring or sacrifice that comes as part of life as their cross to bear, because they see it as connected to Jesus' own suffering on the cross. Indeed, we all have crosses to bear. Some crosses are heavier than others, and like the psalmist, we ask God to deliver us from them. But unlike the psalmist, Christians also pray that God will transform their suffering and use it in some way for the good of others.
Lamentations
One purpose of the poems in Lamentations is to help the ancient Israelites heal from the horrible tragedy of their loss. The poems accomplish this in three ways. First, in describing Israel's present loss and tragedy, they acknowledge that grief and mourning are needed. Second, they challenge Israel to look at its past, both to accept responsibility for its sin and to remember its great blessings from God. Finally, they encourage Israel to have hope for the future. In image after image, Israel is assured that the door to God's mercy is still open, in spite of great pain and loss.
So too must we allow ourselves to grieve when we have experienced the loss of someone we love. If we wall up our grief - and perhaps our guilt, because guilt often accompanies such a loss - we may at the same time shut out those who can help us heal. We must also reclaim our memories of the person we lost, celebrating those of good times and healing those of hurtful times. Finally, as difficult as it may seem, we must open ourselves to the future, for God's love continues to be there for us, calling us to new life.
Isaiah 52.13-53.12
All the above comments were taken from my student's bible. Just wanted to share with friends who read my humble blog about the view on the sufferings we face in our daily life. No copyright intended.
A biblical verse to be shared
For in everything, O Lord! you have exalted and glorified your people,
and you have not neglected to help them at all times and in all places.
(Wisdom 19.22)
and you have not neglected to help them at all times and in all places.
(Wisdom 19.22)
Why do we suffer? Part 2
I, myself, have suffered a lot of loss and failure in just a year. And I, myself, have asked questions like why this kind of things happened to me. Then, one day, a friend told me, when we suffer, we can continue to blame God for what happened to us and continue to be miserable OR there's the happier way, we just pray and trust in Him that He knows what He's doing and He has bigger and better plans for us and go on with our lives.
Job 20-24, 38-41
Why are Jobs frinds so insistent that sin and suffering are connected? Why do they go on, chapter after chapter, telling Job that his suffering is a punishment for his sins? The author of the Book of Job uses the debate of Job and his friends to contrast two positions. The position of Job's friends is that God rewards people who are good and punishes those who are wicked: if Job is suffering terribly, the Job must have sinned terribly. Job's repeated denial of sin reveals the second position, which is that sometimes innocent people suffer. This second position is hard to argue because it leaves a huge question: Why?
Because Job has too much integrity to repent for sins he never committed, he keeps searching for another answer. Finally, Job makes an oath of innocence. Such and oath has God as its witness, and if it is false, it requires God to strike down the person who made it. But God appears to Job in an awesome show of power and reminds Job that human intelligence is too limited to comprehend the deeper mysterires of creation. God alone know why innocent people suffer; Job must trust God's plan.
Job 38.1-42.6
So, that's it? God just shows up, overwhelms Job with a bunch of questions he can't answer, and then gives Gob back double everything he lost? God doesn't even answer Job's question about why he had to suffer!
And what about our questions? Why do innocent children die? Why is someone we love taken from us? Why do people die from hungerin a world that has so much? Why did that plane crash? Why did our friend die?
Why Job was satisfied with God's response? Perhaps Job's mind and his heart struggled with God's answer, and his heart won. Maybe his heart told him to trust in God's love evenb when his mind couldn't understand the mystery of his suffering.
With Job, the Israelite people began to see the suffering of innocent people as mystery and not punishment. In the New Testament, this suffering would continue to be seen as mystery but also something more. The death of Jesus - the ultimate innocent suffering person - and his Resurrection led to the understand that God ultimately brings good our of the suffering of faithful people.
The above comments are not made by me but those were found in my study bible. So, no copyright intended.
Job 20-24, 38-41
Why are Jobs frinds so insistent that sin and suffering are connected? Why do they go on, chapter after chapter, telling Job that his suffering is a punishment for his sins? The author of the Book of Job uses the debate of Job and his friends to contrast two positions. The position of Job's friends is that God rewards people who are good and punishes those who are wicked: if Job is suffering terribly, the Job must have sinned terribly. Job's repeated denial of sin reveals the second position, which is that sometimes innocent people suffer. This second position is hard to argue because it leaves a huge question: Why?
Because Job has too much integrity to repent for sins he never committed, he keeps searching for another answer. Finally, Job makes an oath of innocence. Such and oath has God as its witness, and if it is false, it requires God to strike down the person who made it. But God appears to Job in an awesome show of power and reminds Job that human intelligence is too limited to comprehend the deeper mysterires of creation. God alone know why innocent people suffer; Job must trust God's plan.
Job 38.1-42.6
So, that's it? God just shows up, overwhelms Job with a bunch of questions he can't answer, and then gives Gob back double everything he lost? God doesn't even answer Job's question about why he had to suffer!
And what about our questions? Why do innocent children die? Why is someone we love taken from us? Why do people die from hungerin a world that has so much? Why did that plane crash? Why did our friend die?
Why Job was satisfied with God's response? Perhaps Job's mind and his heart struggled with God's answer, and his heart won. Maybe his heart told him to trust in God's love evenb when his mind couldn't understand the mystery of his suffering.
With Job, the Israelite people began to see the suffering of innocent people as mystery and not punishment. In the New Testament, this suffering would continue to be seen as mystery but also something more. The death of Jesus - the ultimate innocent suffering person - and his Resurrection led to the understand that God ultimately brings good our of the suffering of faithful people.
The above comments are not made by me but those were found in my study bible. So, no copyright intended.
Why Do We Suffer? Part 1
After recent encounters with lots of people who were angry for having lost their loved ones, and being asked why God allows this kind of things to happen to them. This is the very question that got most of my friends and me buffled. No one knows how to explain. So I started following a reading plan in my study bible that has the heading of "Why do we suffer?" So, I just want to really understand and possibly share with people what I've come to understand little by little.
Book of Tobit
In this book, it talks about how Tobit and Sarah suffered. In the story, the faithful Tobit, who is blinded after doing a good deed, and the virtuous Sarah, who is ridiculed because she has had seven husbands die on their wedding nigh, pray for death because of their suffering and humiliation. People may ask, what was the advantage of following God's law if all they had to look forward to was more suffering. But actually, God does eventually reward: it was just a matter of time.
Tobit Chapter 3
When Tobit and Sarah prayed that they may be set free from their suffering, God heard their prayers and sent Raphael to hel them. Despite how much we suffer, God hears us by our prayers and God will never abandon us but rather will show us His ultimate saving grace and love by making even better things happen in our future. No one can completely explain the mystery of why we suffer. But through our loving actions and prayers, we can support one another in our suffering.
Job 1:13-21
There are times we felt so angry at the loss of somethign that we cursed and swore to God. There are times we felt like just giving up on God because our loss. In the book of Job, a man named Job experiences an unimaginable loss. His children, his home, and his property are all destroyed at the same time. Job responds with great anger and great pain, but instead of cursing and blaming God, he blesses (praises) God. Job never loses his faith in God, even when he loses so much else. Through most of the rest of this book, he struggles to understand why this has to happen to him. When faced with great suffering, he does not lose his belief in the goodness of God, nor does he let his friends talk him into false confession of sinfulness. Like Job, we must not fall into the trap of thinking that when bad things happen, God is punishing us. But then again, then we end us with the question why we suffer right? The thing I've learnt is that God is too "big" for us to understand, His ways are not our ways, we have to trust in the Lord and just take our suffering as part of a mystery.
The above comments were found in my study bible. No copyrights intended.
Book of Tobit
In this book, it talks about how Tobit and Sarah suffered. In the story, the faithful Tobit, who is blinded after doing a good deed, and the virtuous Sarah, who is ridiculed because she has had seven husbands die on their wedding nigh, pray for death because of their suffering and humiliation. People may ask, what was the advantage of following God's law if all they had to look forward to was more suffering. But actually, God does eventually reward: it was just a matter of time.
Tobit Chapter 3
When Tobit and Sarah prayed that they may be set free from their suffering, God heard their prayers and sent Raphael to hel them. Despite how much we suffer, God hears us by our prayers and God will never abandon us but rather will show us His ultimate saving grace and love by making even better things happen in our future. No one can completely explain the mystery of why we suffer. But through our loving actions and prayers, we can support one another in our suffering.
Job 1:13-21
There are times we felt so angry at the loss of somethign that we cursed and swore to God. There are times we felt like just giving up on God because our loss. In the book of Job, a man named Job experiences an unimaginable loss. His children, his home, and his property are all destroyed at the same time. Job responds with great anger and great pain, but instead of cursing and blaming God, he blesses (praises) God. Job never loses his faith in God, even when he loses so much else. Through most of the rest of this book, he struggles to understand why this has to happen to him. When faced with great suffering, he does not lose his belief in the goodness of God, nor does he let his friends talk him into false confession of sinfulness. Like Job, we must not fall into the trap of thinking that when bad things happen, God is punishing us. But then again, then we end us with the question why we suffer right? The thing I've learnt is that God is too "big" for us to understand, His ways are not our ways, we have to trust in the Lord and just take our suffering as part of a mystery.
The above comments were found in my study bible. No copyrights intended.
Things always don't turn out to be expected
On Sunday, when I was waiting for the tram to go to church, I was very happy until the tram came, and the person standing in the tram was the person I'm scared of most. My heart actually felt like it stopped at that second when I saw him. Then, I was made a quick thinking and took a turn to ride on the other carriage of the tram. Unfortunately, the guy saw me and came and tapped me and went on the same carriage as me. After that, I desperately tried calling everyone I know, seriously, desperately. But as if my luck had run out, none of the people i called answered my phone until after quite a while. All the while, I was thinking of just hopping off the tram and just gave up going to the church. I was that scared. Then, until my friend gave me advise to linger in the church before taking a seat, and until the scary guy went to sit, I was like some crazy person that couldn't think properly. Even when my friend hugged me, it didn't seem to have any effect on me. When my friend was talking to me, my mind kept on thinking, "Has he taken his seat?", "Is he around still?"...
After that Sunday, the scary guy kept on haunting me. There were times when I nearly ran screaming when he suddenly popped into my head. I'm really that scared of him.
You know, there are so many people that I really want to have a chance to bump into on the streets but why on earth it turned out to be the scary guy I bumped into? I mean, seriously, there are some people I haven't seen like ages but was thinking of meeting them on the streets, but it just never happened. Haih...
I really hope that I will never ever meet the scary guy again....
After that Sunday, the scary guy kept on haunting me. There were times when I nearly ran screaming when he suddenly popped into my head. I'm really that scared of him.
You know, there are so many people that I really want to have a chance to bump into on the streets but why on earth it turned out to be the scary guy I bumped into? I mean, seriously, there are some people I haven't seen like ages but was thinking of meeting them on the streets, but it just never happened. Haih...
I really hope that I will never ever meet the scary guy again....
Rotting away
A few days ago, someone asked me, "So what do you do as hobby?". Well, of course, I haven't really considered that kind of questions since I went into secondary school. Anyway, the first thing that came into my mind and blurted out was, "Rotting away."
I mean, seriously, these past few days, without anything to do, I was just practically just sitting there and let myself rot away. When I watch series, I will be rather not into the series. When I listen to music, I won't be listening to the songs as well.
It's a hard life, I must say. After few years of being extremely "working-hard", it just feels so weird to be so "nothing-to-do". Haih.....
And so, that's how I began 2011. Wow!!! Now that I actually typed out the numbers 2011, I just realised, it's really 2011!!! So so sad!!! Time really passes by too fast!!!! But of course, there's the good side to time passing so fast, because it'll mean that I'm going home soon!!!! Yay!!! I can actually start counting down. Heheheheheh....
Maybe I won't feel so bored at home then. But then again, after I go home, I won't get to see many people, which is of course the bad side of it, especially those who are leaving soon, it'll just mean that I'll have really little time with them. Haih............So sad......
I mean, seriously, these past few days, without anything to do, I was just practically just sitting there and let myself rot away. When I watch series, I will be rather not into the series. When I listen to music, I won't be listening to the songs as well.
It's a hard life, I must say. After few years of being extremely "working-hard", it just feels so weird to be so "nothing-to-do". Haih.....
And so, that's how I began 2011. Wow!!! Now that I actually typed out the numbers 2011, I just realised, it's really 2011!!! So so sad!!! Time really passes by too fast!!!! But of course, there's the good side to time passing so fast, because it'll mean that I'm going home soon!!!! Yay!!! I can actually start counting down. Heheheheheh....
Maybe I won't feel so bored at home then. But then again, after I go home, I won't get to see many people, which is of course the bad side of it, especially those who are leaving soon, it'll just mean that I'll have really little time with them. Haih............So sad......
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