AphroditeGoneAwry
failure to thrive
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2009
- Messages
- 5,585
- MBTI Type
- INfj
- Enneagram
- 451
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/so
Yes, I believe God gave us free will. So I mostly agree with what you wrote above. I believe that suffering comes from the fact that we live in a 'fallen world' full of sin and yes, the Devil's hand in our lives, but also our own inherently sinful nature. I think if we live closer to God's will, the less self-destructive and sinful things we do and the less we suffer at the hands of our own making.
However, I think sometimes love and suffering from God can go hand in hand. This is the experience from my personal life. I believe you touched upon this when you said suffering that makes us stronger, benefits us, or is his will in some way. I would caution against heading toward the kind of thinking that Christianity is all about clouds and fairy floss and making ourselves feel better But it is definately about LOVE. It is hard to know where suffering comes from and what its purpose is. I think this is one of the greatest mysteries of life that are sometimes discovered years and decades later...sometimes not at all...but is all known to God who has a great purpose for our lives and this world. That's what I believe about it.
I agree that God is about Love. I am having a rather difficult time getting through the old Testament because there is so much war and competition in it, with attribution to God. I don't believe God ever was like the God of the Old Testament, but I'm reading the Bible because I've assigned myself that task for various reasons.
It was helpful for me to realize that about God's will and our free will, especially when asking the question, "Why does God let bad things happen?" Well, I think a lot of the time people are the cause of bad things happening, and in those cases, it's not really up to God to save us. He expects us to be good to each other and live in Love as he loves us. Of course sometimes accidents and illnesses happen and there is not obvious reason, and that seems cruel....
I agree with you that the 'point' is not necessarily to be free from pain. Being human, we will suffer if we live long enough. It is hard to be human, and no matter how good or well we live we cannot escape that simple fact. But by shirking God and his presence in our lives, and consciousness of his higher power, we make it so much harder on ourselves. Don't we?