Tag / Happiness

by In Light Of The Cross

Suffering for a Purpose Brings Happiness

 

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I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

I often begin my group Bible studies by having each member share a high and a low for their week. I wonder, if we asked God how His week went, what He would say? We may have seen a child mistreated, but God cried with every child on earth who was mistreated. We may have comforted a friend who just lost a parent. God cried at the bedside of every soul that died that week. We may cheer when our friend accepts salvation. God rejoices with every sold around the world that accepts salvation!
In Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, he explains how people survived concentration camps in world war 2. Without anything to be happy about, the survivors found a purpose for their lives to make living meaningful. Since then, many psychologists have written about how our lives need more than happiness. We need purpose and meaning. In the concentration camps it could mean encouraging another prisoner to hang on.

In Richard Wurmbrand’s book, Tortured for Christ, he described how those in prison for their faith would “tithe” their soap and bread, by giving them to a weaker brother. Even in prison, their life had meaning and purpose by helping someone else and expressing their love for Jesus in the process.  Instead of just being happy, having meaning and purpose made them thrive even in dire situations.

I was going door to door, asking people to take a survey, to see if they were interested in Bible studies or any other service the church had to offer. A man answered the door cursing me, ordering me off his property. It seemed I could not comply fast enough. I felt I had been treated harshly. While this was not the first time I had been treated rudely, what happened next was unprecedented. As I walked down the street, I could sense the presence of Jesus, telling me, “Thank you for sharing in my suffering. Everyone left me at Gethsemane. Now I don’t feel so alone, knowing you have suffered with me.”  Granted I did not taste even a sip of the harshness Jesus drank. Still, as I prayed as I walked, I realized, while I could not be there to wipe the sweat from His face in Gethsemane, I could share in His sufferings today in my own realm. Somehow knowing I had shared a little sip of what Jesus tasted, made my afternoon meaningful. It brought me closer to Jesus. We shared something together.

Instead of asking God to remove suffering, the key might be to ask God to help us find a purpose for our suffering. Sometimes that purpose may be just as simple and yet meaningful as sharing God’s week with Him, so He doesn’t feel so alone.

by In Light Of The Cross

Are you a Prisoner of Circumstances or a Prisoner of the Lord?

I am writing today from the beautiful, yet slightly overcast, Tulsa Oklahoma area.

I am writing today from the beautiful, yet slightly overcast, Tulsa Oklahoma area.

Have you ever felt like you were a victim of circumstances? Due to lack of education or money you have missed opportunities? Maybe if you had not married right out of high school you could have explored the world instead of getting tied down. Now you are sacrificing your own dreams in order to create a better life for your family. Meanwhile someone else wishes they had married so they could be experiencing a family. Now those are examples of being a victim of your own choices and not necessarily circumstances beyond your own control. Other people feel like they were born victims.

Some blame the location of where they were born on how their lives turned out. Several years ago a friend came to visit me from South America. We were stopped at an intersection where a man was begging. My friend was amazed that their were poor people in the United States. She thought all Americans were wealthy. No matter where we come from or what our lot is in life, it is sometimes easy to see ourselves as victims of circumstances.

While I enjoy my freedom of being single, there are times I miss having a family. By the way, just because I am happy being single does not mean I have chosen to remain single. I am just happy being single until God brings me the right woman. I am not desperate. I am happily content. Anyway, I was talking to a friend the other day about one of the things I miss about not having my own family.  I miss having someone to share my story with. I don’t have a wife to share my school yearbook with and tell her my high school and college stories. I don’t have any children to tell my, “when I was a kid” stories to. Then again, I know married people who sadly, don’t have anyone in their family who wants to hear their story either.

My friend then made an amazing comparison. She told me while I have no family to share my stories with that I share them with my church family and extended family on my blog. She told me Paul was the same way. Maybe that is why he wrote so much and loved his church so much, because, having no immediate family, the church was his love and passion and he wrote sharing his story and testimony with them. Maybe that is why he wrote so much! Now I have no doubt Paul wrote because God told him to, and I write too (While I do not share Paul’s inspiration or authority) because God places things on my heart. But it got me to thinking about Paul’s circumstances and one thing I have always noticed.

While being persecuted and in prison Paul never thought of himself as a victim of circumstances. He never even though of himself as a victim of the Jews or Romans while in prison. Paul writes,

 For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles..Ephesians 3:1

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you… Ephesians 4:1

Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner:2 Timothy 1:8

Paul never refers to being a prisoner of the Romans or Jews. He does not talk about being a prisoner of circumstances. Even while in prison Paul saw himself as a prisoner of the Lord! He knew he was right exactly where God wanted him to be. Paul did most of his writing from prison. If he had been free to travel and talk to people in person, he would not have written so much, and we would not have had all of his writings preserved in the New Testament that we have today. Paul was well aware of how an angel freed Peter from prison. Paul was well aware of how Philip just disappeared from one place and appeared in another. Paul knew that the iron bars and soldiers were not really holding him there. He knew he was right where God needed him to be, so he calls himself a prisoner of the Lord instead of a prisoner of man or circumstances.

I have a friend who recently took a job that she was well over qualified for. Based on her education and degree she should be somewhere else making much more money. She may have even faced ridicule from her friends and family for “lowering” herself to take this job, but where she is living, and based on other “circumstances” this was the best she could do for now. However she never complains. Instead she tells me of the people she meets there who need Jesus, that she never would have been able to reach out to if she was not working with them. They never would have come to her church. She never would have met them working anyplace else. She is glad she is where she is because she is being used by God to reach people who need Him! And really isn’t that where we all should be?

No matter where we are born and raised and work, our real home is in heaven and we are just missionaries to this world, sent from God to share the good news with others. Some of us may be missionaries in places of poverty. Some of us may be missionaries in our families, or if we have no immediate family then in our church family and communities. Some of us may be missionaries in difficult work places, and some of us may be missionaries in literal prisons. Either way we are not prisoners of circumstances. If we love God and have chosen to serve Him, we are only prisoners of the Lord.

You can study this week’s SS lesson here.