I have probably heard such a statement(the title) a few times and I have heard people arguing against that line of reasoning. I don't think such a statement is always true but I think universally denying it is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It seems to me that people who say such things are often being either simplistic, naive, or very misguided(because it is so likely to be misinterpreted even if it is true) but those who deny it completely are also mistaken. People are too dang insecure to receive such a statement without misinterpreting it or leaping to bad conclusions as a result(like that their life is a total failure or that they are worthless or something). I think of it in an optimistic way. Yes, having more faith in God would improve my life. To be clear, I am not saying that simply believing 100% in God's existence will result in less suffering(it might even encourage more suffering, especially if you believe in a cruel or unsuccessful god) but that trusting God and having hope(which is a natural result of believing in and trusting God). Yes, much of my suffering is my fault(or avoidable).
Are we to say that Peter was fearful(when trying to walk on water for example) because he was an atheist, because he was just hopeless, etc? I really don't think so. Are we to say that Peter would not have been afraid or would not have sunk if he had more faith? That seems to have been Jesus's response(or insinuation). If Peter had been more trusting and confident in God rather than the wind, he would not have sunk.
There are also examples of this my life and I assume all of our lives. Especially when it comes to despair and believing in lies that lead to suffering. I do not believe a person can despair insofar as they are confident and trusting in God. Maybe our brain can be unbalanced and send signals of despair that do not reflect what we actually fully believe(sort of like an intrusive thought) but such an intrusive feeling would not reflect us on a deeper level.
But I can be optimistic about this because if I am truly to blame, then I just need to improve upon myself to have a better life rather than wallowing and feeling bad about such a fact. It is like when I failed to do one proper push up. I had thought that I was not very fit and wanted to work towards better physical health. I decided I would start doing 50 push-ups a day(because it is harder than it looks and I probably remembered easily doing some in bad form when I was like a 100 pound kid). Upon struggling and not being able to do one(at least not without pushing myself to the point where it would do harm), I laughed(in a positive way) at my plan to do 50 and at being so physically unfit. I had learned to be optimistic(rather than focussing on the bad) about such failure. I was encouraged rather than discouraged because I knew it is easier to gain muscle when you have little and I knew that I would feel better in general and that there was a lot of room for improving my health rather than things being the best they are going to get(but that they would get even better). In the same way, while spiritual weakness or failure is much more serious than weak muscles, we can be honest with ourselves and optimistic in response to our own spiritual shortcomings.
This is not to say we can reduce our suffering simply by taking responsibility and assuming we can reduce it. Often we can't see how we brought something upon ourselves(so there seems to be little we can do about that) and often we have not brought it upon ourself(at least not through wrongdoing or foolishness). Not every bad thing that happens to us is "bad karma". I am not suggesting what was suggested against Job(nor am I suggesting this against anyone)
I also wanted to respond to the related idea "Some evil people live happier lives than good people."
Firstly, pretty much everyone is evil in some ways and pretty much everyone has some God-given virtue so it seems like a misguided way of looking at things. Secondly, nobody "gets away with" evil. Even in the act itself, we punish ourselves and face many consequences latter too. The highest pleasure of a hardhearted person who is not aware of love is a less pleasant experience than the suffering of a person who is very loving. People absolutely can profit financially/materially from evil(it does tend to be harder on the body though) but being evil is relatively miserable. Just because such a person appears like they are enjoying life or are satisfied, does not mean that they are(certainly not as much as a loving and appreciative person). My point is that evildoers are not unjustly rewarded for evil. They may experience some goodness as a result of God or other people being good towards them but we can not gain anything worthwhile or truly profit from evil and neither can anyone else.
Quote from: DanielB on May 30, 2017, 10:37:35 PM
This is not to say we can reduce our suffering simply by taking responsibility and assuming we can reduce it. Often we can't see how we brought something upon ourselves(so there seems to be little we can do about that) and often we have not brought it upon ourself(at least not through wrongdoing or foolishness). Not every bad thing that happens to us is "bad karma". I am not suggesting what was suggested against Job(nor am I suggesting this against anyone)
Unfortunately this assumption- we can reduce our conflict/suffering- is what many supposed leader are promoting as self-obedience, confession of sin, over powering the enemy through claiming personal power and position in the name of Jesus.
I.M.O this is all about personal faith, instead of the reality of Christ's faith which absolves us completely from failure.
Eph 6 which talks about our armour refers to Christ' shield of faith, His armour which protects us. The helmet of knowing we are saved by Him means there is no failure- total freedom.
All of these experiences we go through are part of learning consequential thinking/ cause and effect- which I.M.O explains why we all go through some things; so that there are displayed the right way and the wrong way to handle things; and this will be part of the age to come which will correct all mankind.
Also, whilst there may appear to be some who are getting away with much, they all die.
Many bad guys who did much wrong in the past are dead.
Those we see who seem to be doing well now, will receive their correction at their own appointed time.
1 Cor 15;23 " But each in his own order."
As for the concept of why is this happening to me[Christians] and not to them?
Christ said to Peter;
" If I want him to remain alive until I come back, what concern is that to you?" [John 21;23]
We are all worked on as individuals. We suffer and learn as we grow in Christ- he disciplines whom He loves.
I also wanted to add to what DanielB said ..... just because someone looks happy on the outside in no way means they are on the inside
Also if anyone would actually get to know the person they think is living a happy life, they would find that they ALL have problems
my :2c:
There are several sources of suffering. Sometimes we suffer due to our own foolisness or rebellion. Sometimes we suffer because we are living for Him(rejection, persecution). Sometimes we suffer because the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, and we all share the human condition. Sometimes we suffer because God is shaping us for a particular task.
That means we do not often have the solution to our sufferings, so we trust Him and walk in humility, "It will all come out in the wash" :o)
Over time the fire reveals those things which the Lord will purify....our past thoughts of our own righteousness become filthy rags. Our right becomes wrong and sometimes even our wrong becomes right- but we give God the glory in all things, "So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge."
It is frequently difficult to judge ourselves in such things, and nigh impossible to judge others who we do not even kno. Tho the judgment may seem obvious to me, "Man looks on the outward appearance while God looks at the heart".
In every way we must exercise great doses of trust and mercy, faithfulness and perserverance.
"Today if you hear My voice harden not your hearts as they did in the wilderness.... I said, "They shall not enter my rest".
God is bringing us to the end of our own works, so that He can work in us. "When I am weak then I am strong"..."I live yet not I but Christ lives in me". This is the promised land.
Sometimes it takes a lifetime of trial to become weak, and to cease from ones own works. "Cease striving, and know that I am God".
"In repentance and rest is your deliverance, in quietness and trust is your strength".
Very good EW. :thumbsup:
To be clear, I am not saying "Try to be more righteous and you will not suffer as much.". In fact, I don't think I even mentioned any way of gaining trust in God(we can regard him as more credible by experiencing what he has said as true and hopefully learning to just assume they are true in the future but I don't know if I would say that kind of credibility is the "trust" I am talking about). It is silly to expect anyone to be at peace or be rid of sin without God's help. To me, it seems best to trust that God is supporting me and to try not to wrong others or myself. I am not exactly sure what is meant by "not striving" but I don't think it means to resign ourselves to any evil thing. I have experienced more peace in striving against my evil(addiction for example) tooth and nail than I have had in being resigned to it or by doing anything that would appear to be resting. I would also say that there is no resting or peace or freedom in vices or giving up or acting like a zen master about things that need to change. I trust God to be on my side and not turn his back on me no matter how much I screw up. Many things can be greatly improved upon through effort on our part. Pride stinks(a huge understatement! lol), but not all effort has to come from pride. We should simply acknowledge God's decisive role in our lives. Without divine intervention in my life, I suspect I would be dead many times over or horrifyingly corrupt/evil by now. Pride comes from taking credit for that, not from effort. My confidence in things being improved with effort comes from believing that God will guide my conscience and encourage me and help me, not from a belief in "Human power!" or something. Often times, I think God has even been spurring me through conscience and good desires where it might take more effort not to repent(or change my ways). Pride seems to be a threat no matter what we do so I would not avoid effort in fear of it. Many ideas can be taken too far or obsessed over of course. As I said, I don't think that we have the power to solve every problem in our lives or to make everything super peachy. Some suffering is probably necessary(and we won't be able to avoid it) and some might be good like suffering because of love(out of compassion or enduring a hostile reaction to it like Jesus or a martyr).
At first I thought you were talking about physical suffering. Growing up in a charismatic culture the idea was that if you got sick or something bad happened to you or a family member it was because you didn't have the proper "covering" or that you weren't relying on faith enough.
Peter's suffering stemmed from the fact that he was witnessing a miracle and still lost faith. Like maybe reliance on physical miracles isn't the true path to lasting faith.
I do think I see your point. I don't believe the Gospel is an effort-free message. Rather it's an effort that comes from a well of Power. I teach my daughter things but I also let her strive to figure things out. I think it's the KIND of effort we are talking about. I see it as diligence in the place of vain or dead works.
Seems to me the Pharisees didn't much have a sincere desire for the works of the Law for the purpose of pleasing God but because the it allowed them to brag. Whereas the effort you are talking about is one of sincere desire toward the new command "love eachother as I have loved you", and the importance of stoking that desire when it wanes.
Quote"Peter's suffering stemmed from the fact that he was witnessing a miracle and still lost faith. Like maybe reliance on physical miracles isn't the true path to lasting faith."
Good point. If all we had were physical miracles, I doubt I would have as much trust or hope in God if any. Transforming or restoring a person ultimately seems like a greater miracle than splitting bodies of water in two or walking around on them. Also, I am sure even many of the unbelieving Pharisees, Sadducees, and even Romans and Greeks probably fully believed that we have a creator who can defy(or command) the physical "laws" of the universe but I don't think that necessarily leads to trust.
Quote"At first I thought you were talking about physical suffering. Growing up in a charismatic culture the idea was that if you got sick or something bad happened to you or a family member it was because you didn't have the proper 'covering' or that you weren't relying on faith enough."
I definitely was not talking about the sensation of pain or health problems or financial problems or anything like that. It is easier to be optimistic when we trust God(I am not so sure that trust automatically leads to optimism in this case).
While this is probably not on topic(of trust in God), I do think we can seriously reduce(or at least not increase as most people do) of a lot suffering that happens as a result of physical pain or other things we face. I think our attitude and beliefs(in a nonreligious sense) can make a simply amazing difference here. Like how accepting we are of pain and whether we see it as an evil thing. It would be difficult to maintain such an attitude when it comes to really intense pain but I don't see pain itself as our enemy but attitude and how we respond can make stubbing your toe or hitting your head 10 times more unpleasant or can allow you to brush it off as if it were nothing(one example of this is how small children treat the smallest amount of pain as if it were the end of the world while the same sensation would be no big deal to the average adult). Like I used to be miserable whenever the hot water would run out when I was in the shower but now I take "scottish" showers on purpose because I changed my attitude towards the cold water and have even taken no warm water showers on purpose or when I stub my toe or hit my head I just blurt out something like "DANG!" and then take a deep breath while redirecting my focus and there is no suffering. I assume the same could be applied to even the most intense suffering but that would require greater focus and confidence than I have gained(it would be hard for the same reason it would be for Luke S. to lift a whole X-wing out of a swamp or for Neo to do a 100 foot long jump, to use two nerdy examples. lol Or maybe for the same reason that Peter "couldn't" walk all the way to Jesus on the water). I suspect that there was at least minor pain before the fall and that Adam and Eve (or animals for that matter) could just brush it off like nothing because of an uncorrupted perspective. Sorry, I just wouldn't resist going on rants about the significance of attitude or beliefs. :)