Posted on 05/11/2006 8:08:08 AM PDT by Choose Ye This Day
Anything that gets as much space as the doctrine of human suffering gets in the Scriptures should certainly receive careful, reverent attention from the sons of the new creation.
We cannot afford to neglect it, for whether we understand it or not we are going to experience some suffering.
From the first cold shock that brings a howl of protest from the newborn infant, down to the last anguished gasp of the aged man, pain and suffering dog our footsteps as we journey here below. It will pay us to learn what God says about it so that we may know how to act and what to expect when it comes.
Because suffering is a real part of human life, Christ Himself took part in the same and learned obedience by the things which He suffered.
It should be said that there is a kind of suffering which profits no one: it is the bitter and defiant suffering of the lost. The man out of Christ may endure any degree of affliction without being any the wiser or the better for it.
There is a common suffering which we must share with all the sons of men—loss, bereavement, nameless heartaches, disappointments, partings, betrayals and griefs of a thousand sorts.
But there is such a thing as consecrated griefs, sorrows that may be common to everyone but which take on a special character for the Christian when accepted intelligently and offered to God in loving submission.
A.W. Tozer PING.
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