SUFFERING

Sometimes in life when we go through something that is causing us great suffering we ask the question, 'Why is this happening to me?' A better question to ask ourselves should be, "Why shouldn't this be happening to me?" We too easily forget that in Adam, we all sinned; rejecting God, choosing sin and rebellion and choosing to accept the consequence that would go with it. In Adam, God warned us beforehand when He said, "For in eating it you shall surely die," yet we chose to eat anyway. And so death came into the world in every form, and mankind has since forever suffered because of our choice and because of sin. And we should never try and pass the buck, because make no mistake about it, none of us would've not done what Adam and Eve did, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

God has allowed the world to experience the consequence of its choice, and He has been fully justified in doing so. Apart from the many other reasons the Lord may have for allowing mankind to experience the suffering that we do (and no doubt He would have many), that one reason should be more than enough for us to accept, no matter how painful the reality of it may be. There was a cause for sin, and the effect has been death. In Christ our spiritual lives were salvaged, but our bodies have not yet experienced the fullness of redemption (the resurrected body), and so we must endure till the end.

What should really perplex us is how God allowed His own Son, perfect in every way, to take upon Himself all of our sin; forgiving us completely and finally, and tearing the veil so that we can remain close to Him and in the Holy of Holies, not just now, but for eternity. While in Adam, the Bible tells us, all sinned, in Christ those that believed are made alive. We have been given a life when we deserved death, and we have been given another chance to live in the way that God intended for us. Christ is now this world's true Eden if men will accept Him, and as Christians we have, not only spiritual Eden inside of us, but, the Word says, we have been brought to mount Zion itself:

Heb 12v22But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Having a perfect physical Eden ended up not satisfying Adam and Eve, and it will not satisfy us either (because Edens don't satisfy apart from Christ, and they don't satisfy if they are leant on in a way that replaces Christ as the centre). They had everything that you could possibly want in the natural, and yet they chose to sin. We could have everything we want in this life, and yet still it wouldn't satisfy us and still we would feel a pull, because of our sinful nature, to turn away from God and to choose sin. While we are on this earth, God is wanting to teach us and train us to be able to live with Him and be satisfied with Him alone. Not easy, yes, but also not impossible. Not something that will be without pain, but not something that will be painful beyond what we can endure by His grace.

So, we must come to accept our lot in life, however hard it may be; for we, by nature, deserve it. Yet we must comfort ourselves that Christ has, in His sovereignty, ensured that all things we experience will be worked together for good. This life that should've just been pain, Christ has redeemed and brought great life from because of the cross. Do not look to get rid of pain, because pain will always be a part of this life. And do not think that without pain, we would be satisfied, for only when Christ is the centre of our life and our Eden, will we be satisfied.

While we as Christians often seek for the physical reality of the presence of God and the perfection that we yearn for (a Godly yearning, but one that will only be completely fulfilled in the life to come), the Lord's main intent for us upon earth now is to know and live in the spiritual reality of that presence; for God is Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. In this way we learn and will come to know what Christ truly intended for us as humanity; life via the Spirit of God, not by human might, power or perfection or by what they create to be as their Eden (Eden as they see it and as they want it). And we shall one day know the full reality of what God intended for us as well, when all things will be made right again, and we will know what it is like to live in complete perfection.