Archive for the 'suffering' Category

Feel like quitting?

Published on August 30, 2010 in 2 Timothy and suffering. 0 Comments

If you feel like giving up, then meditate on Paul’s words to Timothy 2 Timothy 2:11-13:

The saying is trustworthy, for:

If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

if we endure, we will also reign with him;

if we deny him, he also will deny us;

if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2:11-13)

Lock paraphrases the passage:

Who shares Christ’s death His life shall share:

They reign with Him their cross who bear:

Who Him deny He will deny:

Though all our faith fall, He cannot lie.

W. Lock quoted by Mounce.

The Big Picture: Remembering Katrina Five Years Later

Published on August 27, 2010 in suffering. 0 Comments

The devastation was beyond comprehension.  See the rest at The Big Picture.

 

If you have recently suffered loss . . .

Published on July 29, 2010 in suffering. 1 Comment

My friend, Alice, recently lost her mother.  Today she shared some very personal thoughts about grief in a post with the title, “Sad.”  Many will be able to relate.

Here’s what nobody can really tell you about bereavement until you experience it yourself and it’s this: Life has an insidious, brutal little way of continuing on. Your car (or both of them) still breaks down. You still have to figure out what to cook for dinner. The bathroom still needs cleaning. Your kids still come home from VBS with a vial of colored sand and sprinkle it throughout your bed, and sand is all over the floor and the shower and the sheets and the pillows and the blankets and you have to rip everything off and throw it in the wash and remake your bed at 11:30 at night. (If you’re wondering if I handled that situation with sweet grace and a tender mother’s love, Readers, oh no, I did not.)

The rest here.

“Have a theology of suffering before it befalls you, so that when it hits you land on solid ground”

Published on July 25, 2010 in suffering. 2 Comments

See also, D.A. Carson – - How can God allow suffering and evil in the world? and Piper, “When you hug those who are suffering, you need a place to stand.”

Matt Chandler is a young pastor with a brain tumor.  There is much to learn from this video.

Zach Nielsen gives these quotes from the video:

“Lauren asked the doctor, ‘what’s best-case scenario and what’s worst-case scenario?’ He said: ‘Best-case scenario is that God heals you… worst-case scenario, honestly, is that you get killed in a car wreck on your way home today.’

“He was the first one to say to me out loud, ‘nothing’s really changed for you – you just get to be aware that you’re mortal. Everyone is, but they’re just not aware of it.  The gift that God’s given you is that you get to be aware of your mortality.’

“So if this goes bad for me, if my MRI scan shows that … I have a short amount of time, I can talk to my wife, talk to my children, shoot videos… most guys who die in their 30’s kiss their wife goodbye in the morning and never come home. … At least once a year, for the rest of my life, I get the anxiety of ‘am I going to hear today that I only have a couple years to live?’ … It is a gift.”

HT: Z

If you’re not suffering now, you will soon – - Preparation is so important

Published on April 19, 2010 in suffering. 1 Comment

In seminary, I began wondering how I would shepherd people through deep valleys that come with the changing seasons of life. One of my seminary professors once told a story about a family that faced a terrible tragedy. I asked him, “How do you minister to someone in that situation?” He said, “If you never did anything in advance to prepare them, there is relatively little you can do at the time.”

So, as a pastor I want to prepare you for suffering.  There is so much grace available in these thoughts from Matt Chandler and C.J. Mahaney:

T4G 2010 — Session 8 — C.J. Mahaney from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

A Nazi work camp contrasted with the castle at Neuschwanstein

Published on April 17, 2010 in Bonhoeffer and suffering. 4 Comments

Our family may be able to visit both the Neuschwanstein castle and Flossenburg this summer.  So, I was interested in this post from that angle.  But, more than that, because I have a great appreciation for Bonhoeffer. 

Gene Fant writes:

A few years ago, on my 40th birthday, I spent the day walking silently with my family through the gates of the Nazi work camp at Flossenburg, Germany, wandering among the monuments to the dead.

The camp is almost empty of structures, though a few chapels dot the grounds; its gravel quarry has been transformed into a lush garden spiraling into the earth.  The oven building, where corpses were reduced to ash, stands in the lowest level of the pit, with a wooden ramp slanting from the oven to the huge mound of human cinders.

Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote “The Cost of Discipleship,” was the camp’s most famous casualty.  I wondered if any of the molecules of his body still resided in the mound.  Standing there, I swatted away large black flies that bit at my arms and legs.

As we walked past the oven, my wife Lisa whispered, “What a contrast from Neuschwanstein, eh?”

Two days previously, we had toured the fairy palace that inspired Walt Disney’s Cinderella castle.  It was packed with tourists who paid dearly for the price of admission.  Words cannot convey the beauty of the structure, so packed with artwork, nor its setting, so high in the Alps on a ridge of rock overlooking a gorgeous lake.

Visitors from around the world gasped with every turn of a corner on our tour, each of us having the same thought in our native languages: “What if I ruled this castle?”

Flossenburg, by contrast, sits on a dead-end road.  It has no gift shop.  It was not crowded.  There were no thoughts of, “What if I were a prisoner in this camp?”

The rest here.

Poland’s unprecedented tragedy

Published on April 12, 2010 in Pictures and suffering. 0 Comments

So far as I am aware, no country in the modern era (or ever?) has  immediately lost so many leaders during peace time.  I am told that even in World War II, Poland’s loss of key leaders was not so horrific.

The Big Picture:

On the morning of Saturday, April 10th, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and 94 other members of Poland’s government and clergy were on a flight to Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. Their airplane, a Polish Air Force Tupolev Tu-154M, crashed in apparently heavy fog, clipping an antenna and breaking apart in a forest less than a mile from the airfield, killing all passengers and crew.

Would you click through, take a look at these pictures, and pray for Poland?

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Click here to see more.

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The below email comes directly from Poland from someone who is close to a family in our church.

You maybe already heard of crane crush that carried top Polish officials to Katyn in Russia. According to media, it’s the biggest such drama in global history during peace time; in that crush died 96 people, including over 40 officials:

· The President and his wife

· Top representatives of the President’s cabinet, including head of National Security Office

· Top representatives of the Parlament (close to 5% of lower and upper house), including two deputies of parliament speaker

· Top representatives of Prime Minister’s office, including deputy of foreign minister

· Top representatives of other government institutions, including the head of the National Bank of Poland

· ALL senior military chiefs of Polish Army (even during II World War the army didn’t suffer such loss as yesterday), including the chief of defense and chiefs of all services

It’s a true political and military earthquake – people are even more shock that during the death of the Pope 5 years ago; since yestardy a few hundred thousand people came by the Presidential Palace in Warsaw to light a candle and pay tribune plus everyone is gathering in churches all over Poland.

Although our constitution takes into account death of top representatives and their succession, death of such many at one time is a nightmare – so far the government works; my god that on that plane was not present the prime minister (who went to Katyn two days earlier and parliament speaker – then truly we would have constitutional nightmare

the Parliament speaker is acting president as of yesterday (in Poland we don’t have vice president since we have Prime minister office) and new elections will be held by the end of June (the presidential elections where planned in October but now it has changed – the current president was planning to run again for the office but he had very little public support and no chance for re-election)

The officials were going to Russia for the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Polish military officers during II World War by Russians (they murdered over 20 thousands of them as part of the plan to eliminate Polish elite as the preparation for the occupation after the war – which ended in 1991); Russia for decades cover-up this crime blaming for it the Nazi – this anniversary was the most important so far since for the first time Russians officials (Prime Minister Putin) was present during the official ceremony. By the way, the Katyn massacre was suppressed also by the British and USA during the war and after it (the USA where afraid that telling the truth about the Soviets will break the coalition which was needed to defeat Japan – in the 1950’s there was Congress investigation which proved that Roosevelt suppressed all reports about Katyn; the same holds true for the Brits who not only suppressed the truth but also until the 1970’s where blocking Polish emigrants in Britain in building there memorial of Katyn)

The good thing (if there could be any of such drama) is that politicians from all parties united (we already had brutal presidential campaign); also, so far it shows that this drama which happened in Russia may bring Poland and Russia together.

We are leaving now to the Presidential Palace to light a candle…

S.M. Lockridge: Sunday’s Comin

Published on April 2, 2010 in Christology, Easter and suffering. 0 Comments

HT: JT

Haiti 70 Days Later

Published on March 24, 2010 in suffering. 0 Comments

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More at the Big Picture.

Why is there suffering in the world today? Think about your answer before suffering comes.

Published on March 18, 2010 in suffering. 2 Comments

Greg Laurie’s son died tragically in a car accident in the summer of 2008.  So, when I saw that he was interacting with Randy Alcorn about why there is suffering, I was very interested in the dialogue.  (Read more here).

For all of us, it’s better to think through suffering in advance . . .

(Why is there suffering in the world today? from Randy Alcorn on Vimeo.)