Read Part 1.
Our pastor recently asked for a show of hands: “How many of you are aware of someone you knew personally who died in the last three months?” A lot of hands went up. Our pastor is keen on helping believers process these experiences through a biblical grid.
I am, too, starting with myself—hence, this review/meditation.
In April of 2020, as COVID-19 was disrupting all our lives in ways most of us had never experienced before, I wrote about my personal need to revisit my theology of suffering. It’s interesting to look back on the set of uncertainties that was on my mind at the time.
Now, more than a year and a half later, much has changed, but much hasn’t. Oddly, now that the pandemic is something we’ve mostly gotten used to, it seems like people I know, or loved ones of people I know, are dying of the disease all around me. So what I expected more of in 2020 is reality now, near the end of 2021.
“The Lord’s suffering is our example, not that we should follow the exact same kind of sufferings as he did (i.e. we aren’t called to literally die on a cross), but that we should follow his manner in our own sufferings” - Don Johnson
“How could God allow such evil? How could he permit suffering to ravage people who love their families and dream of happiness and hope for something better, as we all do?” - TGC
“The day we received the report was one of the hardest we’ve had since he died. Yet there was also some comfort in it. It was comforting in the sense that he did nothing wrong and we did nothing wrong. It was comforting in the sense that the people who tried to save him did all they could… And it was comforting in the sense that it was so clearly an act of providence in which the Lord just took him.
It is interesting that verse 20 refers to John as “the one who had been reclining at table close to him” right after Jesus gives Peter a chance to retract his threefold denial of Jesus with a threefold affirmation of his love. We could easily surmise that Peter the Denier is going to suffer martyrdom while John the Beloved will escape such a fate, and each will do so based on their faithlessness or faithfulness. Yet, there is no hint in the text that this is so. Their differing fates were the result of the good pleasure of God—“if it is my will.”
“…we’re not obligated to think about, let alone agree with, any old thought that pops into our heads. We can direct our minds. We can take charge of our thoughts.” - Olinger
Reposted from Rooted Thinking. By Forrest McPhail.
Today is one of my “dark days.” Pain has been relentless for a couple of days, restricting my life and ministry. What I do on such days requires much mental discipline.
“He tends us, he nourishes us, and when necessary he prunes us. And though we do not welcome those times when pains cut deep into our souls, we have this confidence: No hand but his ever holds the shears.” - Challies
“Last spring, my youngest found me lying in bed when she arrived home from her soccer game: ‘Does your head still hurt really bad, Mom? It’s okay that you missed my game; I have more coming up.
