TORN IN THE FLESH: Part XII of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

We wrote in our previous  chapter about King Saul and how his pride brought him down; he needed to be humbled.

Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18

But what about David? Did David also get a bit full of himself, too? Remember in an early part we looked at David and how he seduced Bathsheba and murdered Uriah the Hittite. David was severely punished for what he did as well, but God did not reject David from being King of Israel as He did Saul. What was the difference?

When we become full of our selves, we lead our selves into trouble and we may also decide we are better than others. We may even begin to abuse others. God may allow some suffering to remind us we are but humans and to keep us humble. We may suffer even greater outcomes if we refuse to be humbled.

The people we looked at so far were humbled because of some sin on their part or because they turned away from God and put themselves up on a pedicel. But what if someone has been forgiven by God, been saved, is putting God first and serving Him faithfully? We have said we all suffer in this world, God pours rain on all and the sun shines on all, the good and the bad. But can even the faithful Christian suffer for the reason of humbling?

Is there Scripture to support this? Did you ever consider the Apostle Paul? Look at Second Corinthians 12:7-10.

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Who is saying this?

Paul, who had many reasons to brag. If Paul had to be given a thorn of suffering to keep him humble and focused, then how much more someone like me. I am far weaker than Paul. I dread to think of the monster I would have been if not for certain afflictions I have, weak eyes, psoriasis that mars my skin and many other failings of mind and body.

Sometimes asking the question, "Why me?" is something we should attempt seriously to answer. We may not have done anything to deserve it. It may be what we would do if it didn't happen. Like pain may be a warning to examine the body, suffering may be a warning to examine our faithfulness to God and not to our selves.

In 2012, I became caretaker to both my mom and dad over the last six months of their lives and there was a lot of suffering involved by a number of people, my parents, of course, and me and my wife, and a number of others. It was the Grace of God how things worked out through that ordeal that often seemed hopeless and impossible. It was also a very humbling experience for me and it brought home the passage about the farmer who stocked his barns to overflowing. It also directs us back to that Rich Young Ruler who couldn’t pass up his riches to follow Jesus and what his future really held, plus it made another bit of scripture very clear, real and meaningful to me. It is from the Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 6:19-21.

 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

My mother was 92 and my father 94 when they died. Their house was full of all they had accumulated over the 72 years they had been married and individually over more than 90 years; I mean the rooms were full, the attic and the basement. But in the last days of their lives, as my mother died and then less than three weeks later, my dad, all of it was gone. Their car sold, their house sold, all the furnishing, knick knacks, pots and pans, old paint, tools, stored away mementos, everything hauled away. Only the clothes taken to the nursing home remained and after they died even these were gone, given to charity.

I saved only all the photographs and some important papers, and two of my father’s hat, one he wore often in age and his Sailor hat from World War II. Those things were of little value in the end, but what was of value is knowing they both knew the Lord and they were not gone like their possessions, but lived on in Heaven, where their real treasure is.

We begin this journey of life
Down a road we do not yet know.
We see the blossoms of the moment,
Costumed in dancing colors
That entices us like the bees,
To their perfumed petal traps
And we lust to gain their beauty,
 To glisten like the rose after a rain.

We watch the sun rise upon the distance city,
Turning the towers of glass to gold,
Shimmering like a river of riches
And our eyes serve us our breakfast of wants
Sprinkled with the sweet sugar of excess.
We glutton for the fat of the land.
Our stressed hearts beat faster
As the grasp of our hands
Fills our veins with the empty
Calories of success.

We ignore the storms of warning
That dare darken our skies and the path
To our ever bigger car and grander house.
We fill our rooms with non-necessities
To gorge our obese egos
And we ignore the dust specks of reality
That swirl about the air to settle
Lightly upon our treasures
As if in echo of some ancient tome.
Not Home Sweet Home,
But ashes to ashes and
Dust to dust.

We do not see the light for the shimmer.
Our eyes are always to the rainbow,
An illusion of sun and water,
A trick of diffusion
And a lure to delusion.
We cannot own the colors,
But can we the Pot of Gold at its end?
But where the rainbow ends
Lies the mire of despair and truth.
When we reach the distance touchdown point
The rainbow fades away
With all we ever gathered
And we are left naked before the eyes of God.

"At the Rainbow's End", Written June 2012


We have looked at suffering for various reasons, because of sin and thus punishment, sometimes as a means of discipline and now to keep us humble. But can we suffer for other reasons? Can we suffer when we haven’t committed a sin, are not really in need of punishment, have been well disciplined and are humbly serving God? And if so, can such suffering serve a purpose or be fair? Or is such suffering a reason to disbelieve in God?

There was something else noted here that is a clue for the next post , but for homework discipline, read Psalm 19, Luke 13 and also find out what happened at Dunkirk and what Churchill said about it as more clues to another reason we suffer, which will be the next posts' lesson.

References: Proverbs 16:18, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Matthew 6:19-21

Illustration:

The photo at the top of this post is of my ankles taken by me in

August of 2013. During my daily morning as I circled the Kitchen Garden at Rockwood Museum Park a rose bush branch snagged my bare legs. I could not shake the branch. It dug in and slice up doth my lower extremities.  It really hurt, too. 

Even More what Scripture says about our suffering:
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:6-7

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me. “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 5:15-6:3

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. Lamentations 3:22

SILOS AND TOWERS: Part XI of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

FULL BARNS

There is dust across the fields tonight.
The moon shines upon a forgotten plow.
Tomorrow in the dawn nothing changes.
The furrows remain unseeded, unattended.
The crop brought a banner yield at harvest
And the farmer took his rest.

He tore the old ones down and built anew.
Big sturdy silos and heavy wooded stalls
To hold all the grain and produce
Through the year and seasons to come.
He planned a banquet every day
And drank wine the very best.

He worked the summer long in the heat and dry,
Plowing in the spring and weeding through
Until the corn grew tall, the apples sweet,
For the cool crisp autumn harvest where
He took in his bounty of the labor.
And tore the old ones down and built anew.
“I’ll grow fat now”, was his jest.

So he filled the cribs to the breaking point,
He stacked the fruit up to the ceiling
And scattered wheat across the threshing floor.
“I’ll live a life of ease and merriment,”
And with that cry he challenged God.

Now these wait full for the burrower and thief,
Fine food to feed the pests.

by Larry Eugene Meredith, April 2012

Published "Poetry Vortex" 2012

Wilmington, Delaware

Dallas Kirk Gantt, editor

A quick review: Sin entered the world because Eve and Adam using the gift of free will were disobedient to God. Disobedience to God is the definition of sin. Commitment of a sin brought its own suffering in shame, mental anguish, regret and fear. However, man after a short time was able to rationalize his behavior and diminish the influence of conscience. As a result, punishment was needed to deter sin. Punishment, in whatever form, involves the infliction of some kind of suffering.

Sometimes people didn't commit a sin, but were making choices that could result in sin or less than the best for the people involved. These people needed some guidance. Guidance sometimes involved suffering to show their way wasn't the best way.

Sometimes suffering was brought on by folly, by our own stupidity or stubbornness. We decide we can beat the train to the crossing and end up with a smashed up car and an ambulance ride to the hospital, or perhaps to the morgue. It was foolish behavior and we suffered for it.

It is not always a clear-cut distinction between these reasons why we suffer. Any of them can involve a sin; some may not involve sin every time. Punishment may also be a form of guidance and discipline may or may not include punishment. We come to a fifth reason we may suffer and it could involve sin, but it ain’t necessarily so.

It is not at all unusual to see some person become so sure of their self they overreach their ability and fail miserably and come to ruin just like that particular farmer in my poem.

And he [Jesus] told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’Luke 12:16-21.

So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

It didn’t take long after the Creation for man to become obsessed with his own powers. Remember  the offspring of Cain. (Genesis 4:17-24) His descendents looked to success in earthly pursuits and turned away from God and what did that lead to? A big puddle of water that washed away all those people accomplished. Still, it didn’t take long after Noah landed up on Mount Ararat (Genesis 8:4) until we come to this in Genesis 11:

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a

plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." Genesis 11:1-4

What happened next?

God looked at what man was doing and put a stop to it. He caused the various people to begin speaking in different tongues so they couldn't understand each other and he scattered them over the whole world.

What are your thoughts about this?

Do you think God was afraid man would become more powerful than He when He said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them?"

What would have happened if God had left man finish that tower and not change the language?
I think men would have become so full of them selves they would went on disobeying God in a grand style until they brought it right back where it was before the flood. God stepped in to prevent this for the sake of mankind.

By the way, man's plan for Babel was already a grand sin of disobedience. God had ordered early man to fill the whole world, not consolidate in one place. This may be the reason he scattered them after confusing the language. God's creatures never usurp God’s plan.

Speaking of which, look at how certain people have usurped the rainbow. I saw this Twitter Tweet quoted on Facebook.

 “Ireland got a double rainbow after legalizing same-sex marriage. Texas got a flood after banning it. God has spoken.”

This is what you get from those ignorant of Scripture.

Read Genesis 9:12-16:

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

So those Texans who suffered floods had the assurance that God would not destroy them while Ireland should have been grateful God put that reminder in their skies; in fact, had to double it up, for the same reason.

Look at Saul, the first Israel King. There is a lot we could say about this guy, but let's focus on a couple of passages:

1 Samuel 9:1-2
There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people.

1 Samuel 13:8-15
He (Saul) waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him. Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal. The rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the army; they went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin.

And Saul numbered the people who were present with him, about six hundred men. And Saul and Jonathan his son and the people who were present with them stayed in Geba of Benjamin, but the Philistines encamped in Michmash. And raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. One company turned toward Ophrah, to the land of Shual; another company turned toward Beth-horon; and another company turned toward the border that looks down on the Valley of Zeboim toward the wilderness.

1 Samuel 15:1-30
And Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand men on foot, and ten thousand men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart; go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction.
The word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night. And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.” And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” And Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?” Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.” Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night.” And he said to him, “Speak.”

And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” And Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord.” And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore. And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” Then he said, “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may bow before the Lord your God.”

and 1 Samuel 18:6-16.
As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they celebrated,
“Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”

And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?” And Saul eyed David from that day on.

The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand. And Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, “I will pin David to the wall.” But David evaded him twice.

Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence and made him a commander of a thousand. And he went out and came in before the people. And David had success in all his undertakings, for the Lord was with him. And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David, for he went out and came in before them.

Saul’s leadership and life basically falls apart from this point on as he becomes more concerned about his own status than his people or with God’s will.

Pride can be a sin. Pride can be our idol; in fact, it can turn us into the object of our own worship. We get so high on our own ability, beauty, talent, gift or success that we puff up our chests and brag we did it all our selves. We forget about God in our belief in our powers, but…

Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18

References: Luke 12:16-21, Genesis 4:17-24, Genesis 8:4, Genesis 11:1-4, Genesis 9:12-16, 1 Samuel 9:1-2, 1 Samuel 13:8-15, 1 Samuel 15:1-30, 1 Samuel 18:6-16, Proverbs 16:18

NEXT: A THORN IN THE FLESH

Illustrations:

1 . Photo of a small silo at Landis Valley Village by Larry Meredith, July 2014.

2. "The Building of the Tower of Babel" by Henrick van Cleve, year unknown.

3. "Saul Tears Samuel's Robe", artist and date unknown.



 

RIDDLE ME THIS: Part X of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

Let’s move on to another reason we may gain suffering.

From the Darwin Awards for 2008:

 "(January 2008, Pennsylvania) A 23-year-old man with various body piercings wondered what it would feel like to connect his workplace test equipment to his chest piercings. Several co-workers tried to convince him that it was a bad idea to wire himself up to the electronic control tester, but he ignored their pleas.

"He proceeded to connect two alligator clips to his piercings and hit the test button... When the police and rescue personnel arrived, his co-workers were still trying to revive him with CPR and rescue breathing. They were not successful."

Why does God allow such suffering?

God gave us a brain, now you want God to think for you?

God has given us common sense. Believe it or not if we use it we avoid a lot of suffering, but the videos on “World’s Dumbest…” and “20 Most Shocking” and others all over YouTube show us how often we skip right over common sense to folly.

Yes, we can suffer because of folly.

Folly can be tied to a sin, but just as often may not be. It may be nothing more than plain stupidity. We have a lot of labels on products that state the obvious, such as "remove baby from stroller before folding", because someone did something stupid and suffered for it.

So let's look at another famous Bible character, this one in the Old Testament and he is pretty famous, especially his romance, but boy he could have used more discipline to avoid folly. Unfortunately he didn’t act very prudently at times and his suffering was very harsh indeed.

Do you all get this was Samson?

Samson is one of the heroes of the Bible. He is probably the best known of the Judges of Israel. He was given the gift of supernatural strength. He may have had big biceps, but his brain wasn't the biggest bulge of his body. He actually liked to play mind games, but he couldn't keep his mouth shut about his cleverness and he couldn't keep secrets if a pretty woman was involved. He was strong physically, but he was weak in his morals.

One day Samson killed a lion. A bit later he saw the carcass of the beast with bees and honey in it and he ate some of the honey. (I'm not big on eating something out of a dead animal, which strikes me as a bit of folly in itself, but maybe people were less fussy back then.) He came up with a riddle from this, "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet." He made a big bet with some fellows they couldn't guess the riddle's answer. And they couldn't and they wouldn't. Samson's wife, however, begged him for a week to tell her the answer and when he told her, she told them, and he lost his bet, and eventually lost his wife. (See Judges 14 – 15:1-6).

Samson didn’t seem to learn any lessons from this; he just couldn’t seem to resist women.

In Judges 16:1-3, he follows a prostitute in Gaza and became surrounded by Philistines. His strength saved him from this situation his lust had placed him in, but he still didn’t learn that he was relying on his God given power wrongly in the folly of his behavior.

This folly was a pattern that repeated itself and led to great suffering for Samson. He later met another pretty woman, not his wife by the way, named Delilah (Judges 16 4-22) and she asked him to tell her why he was so strong. Now to show you how dimwitted Samson was and why this was folly, she didn't stop there. She added to her question: "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued."

Do you think he might have thought that last part through?

He decided to have some fun with her and told her a lie about seven thongs that haven't been dried. So she tied him with seven such thongs as he slept, then let in a bunch of thugs who tried to subdue him.

They failed.

You'd think he had the picture by now, but then she asked again and he lied again about rope and she tied him with rope as he slept and thugs came again and they got dispatched again. And of course then he woke up to just what Delilah was doing.

No-o-o-o.

She asked again and he lied again about braiding his hair on a loom and she braided his hair as he
slept and thugs came again and they got dispatched again. Well, three times is the charm it is said, so naturally this time the light bulb went on in Samson's head, right?

No-o-o-o.

Then she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength."

With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death. So he told her everything.

"No razor has ever been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man."

When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, "Come back once more; he has told me everything."

So the rulers of the Philistines returned with silver in their hands. Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him. Then she called, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" He awoke from his sleep and thought, "I'll go out as before and shake myself free." But he did not know that the LORD had left him. Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. (Judges 16: 15-21)

Samson was often a fool for pretty women. Delilah wasn't his first dalliance, but it was his last. His commitments of adultery were sins, but he suffered his fate through folly.

Folly may not be so obviously a sin as Samson committed. Folly can be simply ignoring what is best for us in pursuing our pleasures. It may not be a sin to go Base Jumping off a high building or a cliff, but if the jumper one day goes splat they will list the cause of death as  “death by misadventure” or folly.

If one does a wheelie on a motorcycle, flips over and breaks their back, they will suffer from an act of folly and do we blame God?

When I go walking up in Brandywine Creek State Park, on narrow high paths, sometimes on mud or

snow, with no cell phone and having not told anyone where I was going to walk that day, I am indulging in folly. Should it be God’s responsibility to see that I don’t fall down a ravine?

Okay, for next time I am suggesting a couple more Bible Characters, but you don’t have to guess.

One is named Saul, not the Saul who became Paul, but the Old Testament King Saul and the other is the Paul, who was once called Saul, the New Testament Apostle Paul. Take a look at something in these men’s lives that points to another reason we may suffer.

References:  Judges 14, Judges 15:1-6, Judges 16:1-22

NEXT TIME: FULL BARNS

More what Scripture says about our suffering:

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. James 1:12

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. Philippians 4:12-14

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. Hebrews 10:36

ILLUSTRATIONS:

Picture of a jar of Lion Kashmir Honey

"Samson Carries the gates of Gaza " by Henri Paul Motte, 1908

“Samson and Delilah” by Matthias Stom, 1630s.

The author walking the trails, 2014