Friday, January 9, 2009

"Without suffering, there can be no compassion"

Well, I'll shoot straight, there have been times in my life where I've been upset with God, asking why life has to be so full of hadships and trials. Sometimes I've wondered why God has to let life be so hard. Then I realize that some of life's hardships are brought upon myself by my own actions. To be upset with God isn't fair in those situations, but what about the times when I'm just the innocent bystander and my life seems to just fall apart all around me? What about those times? Many people say there can't be a God in heaven with all the suffering in the world. Well I disagree. I have found that when life's road gets the toughest, that's when I find myself closest to God. Like the title says, how could we ever give or recieve compassion if we didn't have suffering? After all, it was through the worst possible torment that Jesus showed the whole world how much he cares for us? He offered those sufferings up to God in atonement for the salvation of someone like me? I mean, why would He do that if He didn't have a purpose for me that's higher than the normal falling down and giving up when life gets hard? I think I've found that by showing compassion to others my pain is put at ease and life isn't so hard anymore. One of the lines that hit me the most out of a movie many of you have probably seen called "a walk to remember" when Jamie says "without suffering there'd be no compassion" Landon replies, "yea, well tell that to the people who suffer." well, I realized that when I've suffered in one way or another, I can have compassion for overs going over similar hardships. God really does have a reason for giving us the gift of suffering. Maybe it's time we realize it's there to make us better, stronger people in the end. True, others take suffering much better than I, but I use them as inspiration to also accept the hard parts in life the way I should. I'd love to keep weaving this analogy further, but considering that I have less than 4 hours until it's time to get up again, I should probably try to utilize as much of that time actually sleeping as possible :) God bless you, and hopefully next time you experience a hardship you will remember that until passed through flames most metal is comepletely worthless. Hopefully we can be like lead that only takes a little bit of heat to go the right way instead of taking years of running from the hardships and not letting God use them in our lives.hopefully this makes sense even though I haven't slept in over 20 hours... :) later! Matt