Thursday, April 06, 2006

Why???? #2

As we talk about suffering and why God permits it we must also acknowledge that adversity forces us to grwo--in the same way that an athlete pushes himself to the limit, so his muscles will grow suffering often pushes us to our limits so our spiritual muscles will grow. Rom. 5:3-4 talks about the fruit of tribulation--patience, which leads us to a hope and trust in God. When we lost our house to Hurricane Marilyn in 1995 I didn't know what we were giong to do. The next week a check came from a church in response to the damage we had from Hurricane Luis 10 days before Marilyn, which tided us over. Some brethren had added a second story to their house but had not quite finished it so we were able to move in there until we were able to get a roof back on our toolshed and get it ready for us to live in temporarily--it was small, 7' X 14'. So small that when we went to bed we ALL had to go to bed. With the Lord's help we not only survived but were able to build a permanent house. These sufferings caused our faith in God to grow and to push our skills to the limit to build a block house, which we moved in to one year later. So when our house in TN burned in 2004 we knew the Lord would provide, and He did. Yes we were out of the house 5 months and lost everything in it, but now have esenetially a brand new house inside and new furnishings that actually match.

Sufferings push us to grow, whether we want to or not. They also teach us patience--the recovery process is always slow, or at least slower than we think it should be. Thus we MUST have patience, which will benefit us in all areas of our life.

Why does God allow suffering? Otten we can see the reason or reasons, but as in the case of Job sometimes we can't. Interestingly enough God never tells Job why he is suffering--all He says is you just have to trust me on this one. If we believe that God knows what's best for us, there are times we just have to trust Him.

Tol

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