Monbulk Christian Fellowship
Follow us on Facebook
  • Home
  • Our Values
  • Our Team
  • Ministries
    • MCF MISSIONS
    • Young People
    • Men's
    • Women's
    • Community Care
  • Worship
  • Sermons
  • Contact us
  • Members

Pain, Suffering & Relationships II

17/9/2016

0 Comments

 
I’d now like to comment on how we respond to life’s curve balls, storms, brick wall smashes, heart-aches and other gut-wrenching experiences.

Speaking of storms, I heard Pastor Mark Conner speak on this, which I found quite helpful.
There are basically three types:


  • Self-generated storms.
    These are mainly consequences of our own unwise decisions, either from ignorance or wilful choices. We can respond in a number of ways:

    1. Denial and/or blame-shifting, which only makes the problem worse.  e.g. “The Devil made me do it!” “I had a horrible upbringing! ” etc.   

    2. Passive acknowledgement,  where we admit we were at fault,  we take the rap but don't do anything about it.   I think they call that “Apathy.”

    3. Guilt and remorse. This may be a religious or a well-meaning conscientious response, but it often leads to depression, penance -- even self-harm and other weird things.

    4. A healthy sense of Conviction (very different from merely feeling guilty, although our guilt must be acknowledged of course) that leads to repentance i.e. a change of heart, a change of direction -- even putting things right if possible.

    The final stroke that breaks the yoke is accepting God’s forgiveness, and forgiving one’s self. That doesn't necessarily mean that the storm will go away, because consequences are consequences no matter how repentant we are.
    But then there's God's mercy…..



  • Hostile storms from the Enemy.
    Let’s face it, the Devil wants to kill, steal & destroy us. It doesn't matter whether we are a threat to him or not -- he hates us anyway -- even if we're doing his bidding.
    So how do we respond?

    1. We can become intimidated and shrink back into our prisons again, or run and hide (which is the same thing). And who hasn't done that at least once?
    The road to courage isn't that easy for any soldier. The Duke of Wellington used to say that even his best troops will occasionally run away. He understood that, as long as they formed rank again, ready to  advance for another crack at the enemy. And as we know, Wellington defeated Napoleon with these very same troops.  

    2. We can recognize that the enemy has no real power except the power of lies, and then we can make a stand (Eph 6:10,11 and onwards).

    3. We can also take the offensive (Eph 6:17,18), and take back what the enemy has stolen.

  • Storms sent from God.
    It doesn’t happen very often, but it happens!
    “But wait a minute,” I hear you say, “Isn't God too loving and forgiving to do that?”

    God is certainly loving and forgiving -- way beyond our understanding. But He is also the ultimate judge, way beyond our understanding. He knows what He's doing even when we can't see it. And He has feelings too.

    His storms are mostly sent with a purpose: to make us come to our senses, realize how pathetic we are in comparison to Him, or even the forces of nature which only hint at His might.

    Sometimes He sends His storms, or even makes use of other storms to remove the works of the enemy. God is not going to let the enemy have a field day forever, even if we consent to it. He didn’t sit back and let mankind destroy itself in the past. This includes, to be brutally honest, eternal consequences on those who are totally committed to doing Satan’s works. Even Jesus didn’t mince His words:
    “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36)
    If we reject God’s solution to our hopeless state, what have we got left?
    How can we tell if that’s the case?
    I don’t know. God is judge regarding that, not me -- nor anyone else for that matter. Let’s not waste our time telling God what He should or shouldn’t do.

    Sometimes His storms will take away things or even people we hold dear.
    How do we respond to that one?
    I don't want to trivialize that in the least. I don't have all the answers. But I’ve seen some amazing and wonderful changes that have come out of these hard times, when the sufferer has responded well to it. A whole book of the bible was written about this issue.
    As someone once said, these things will make us either “bitter” or “better”.

    How many of us have stumbled and blamed God when hard times come (often when it hasn't been a God-sent storm), and have lost our usefulness in the Kingdom of God -- until we come to our senses of course.


I want to reiterate, I know there are some of you out there that have suffered much more than I’ll ever know. I want to acknowledge that. But this topic needs to be brought to the light by somebody, so wounds can be recognised and treated. Otherwise these will fester in many people’s hearts.

I want to close with one true story.
A man lost his young son, who tragically died. In the intensity of his grief, he raged against God: “Where were You when my son died??”
Then God replied: “In the same place when My Own Son died.”


He knows what it’s like.

0 Comments

Pain, Suffering & Relationships

2/9/2016

0 Comments

 
I take up this topic with fear and trepidation, knowing that nearly all of us have experienced varying degrees of pain, tragedy, grief, failure, injustice and all the rest of it. It's a part of life that no one likes to discuss and few know how to handle well.
Whole books have been written on this. Millions of songs have been inspired by it, even creating a whole genre of music called the “Blues” (although poetic expressions of sorrow have been around since the dawn of time.)

(By the way, the title of this post isn’t meant to be a negative reflection on relationships, although it has frequently happened when relationships turn sour. These next posts are about how good relationships can help.)

Suffering is a subject way too complex to come up with simplistic answers to the huge questions it raises, especially for those who are going through it right now.
But if we don't discuss the problem of pain or learn from our painful experiences, we are setting ourselves up for failure and even worse pain further down the track.
Even more so if we haven’t experienced much and the inevitable seasons of suffering  come upon us.


I'm still in the school of learning myself regarding these things too, so I pray that I handle this topic sensitively but honestly. 
I know that there are many people who have experienced more pain than I have (and probably ever will) but I have experienced enough to have some compassion for those who are going through it.

I wish -- how I wish! -- that I could solve all your problems with this one blog-post, but it ain't gonna happen.  Sorry about that! But life is too big for one person to get a complete handle on it.
However,  I’d like to share a few thoughts from my observations and experiences which might help -- maybe generate some fruitful discussions. Any comments below are very welcome.

This may stir up some painful memories for some, but hiding it or ignoring it only make it worse. Any physical pain in our bodies must be acknowledged before the real condition that causes it can be treated.  It's no different in the realm of our soul (mind, will and emotions.) If it's too personal for a public forum like this,  MCF is here to help you with supportive groups or one on one support.


Our church’s mission is not an exclusive club, but as a hospital for hurting people, run by people who are finding healing from our own hurts.
We don't have all the answers to every problem,  but we have discovered that a personal relationship with God and a trustworthy, compassionate, supportive community can make a huge difference, often finding healing in the process.
That's one of the main reasons I attend MCF. We don't want to judge you as many religious people would, but rather we want to go with you through your journey to find healing.

So contact us if you need further help.

But before we can start any self-diagnosis, let alone specific treatments, we need to understand some major underlying principles and influences that contribute to our problems.  These are some that I’ve discovered:
  • We live in a fallen, imperfect world. I'm convinced that nature, the whole universe,  is tied up in the present state and the destiny of humanity.  The apostle Paul noted this.
    We all know the principle of reaping what we sow. Why should we be surprised if we see an increasing number of natural disasters, diseases, wars etc?

  • We seem to be living in a culture of blame-shifting. We make bad choices, and when the natural consequences come, or society takes just vengeance on us we blame it on bad parenting or others hurting us, influence of friends or family etc. Yes compassion should be shown for our own pain, but I’ve noticed that we will never truly be rid of it until we take responsibility for our own actions.

  • We were made in the image of God,  but that image has degenerated because of humanity's choice to turn our back on God. We are a blend of the greatest Good and the greatest Evil.
    Optimistic humanists will tell you that we are our own gods, but even a cursory glance at history and our record as “gods” definitely belies this. True, we all have that divine spark within us, and when that surfaces, we almost deify the result. (And it should be honoured, at least.)
    Yet when the darker side shows and others suffer for it, we laugh or shrug it off, or even worse, we hail that person as “a survivor” or "highly evolved.".

    I’ve become disillusioned with the Hollywood image of humanity as a super-race rising to godlike status all by itself.  If we take an honest look at the human race over the years where there hasn’t been any divine intervention, we get worse, not better.
    This results in the suffering of millions from our selfish self-centredness, often taken to cruel extremes.
    One example of this divine intervention vs human self-destruction is England around the time of the French Revolution and the “Reign of Terror”. Many historians are convinced that the same madness would have spread to England’s shores, except for one powerful factor: The Wesleyan Revival.

But that’s enough of the philosophical/historical aspect of it for the moment.

​Next time I’d like to discuss the healing of that pain a bit more



0 Comments

    Archives

    January 2019
    October 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016

    Categories

    All

privacy

Contact

Photo used under Creative Commons from jm3