Musings on pop Christian songs & Alzheimers

So your life feels like it don't make sense

And you think to yourself, "I'm a good person,

So why do these things keep happening?"

Why you gotta deal with them?

I've heard this catchy, pop "Christian" song on the radio a lot lately.  After listening to the lyrics though, I realized there is a lie in there that so many Christians buy into. Including myself.

 

"I'm a good person, so why do these things keep happening."

 

As a believer, I have really known very little suffereing. And it's NOT because I'm a good person. In fact, the more I see myself in light of God's Word, the more I realize I deserve worse suffering than I can imagine!

 

My grandmother has been lying in a nursing home bed for years now. Everytime I go see her I really struggle with understanding the purpose of her laying there, year after year after year. Suffering.  Seemingly pointless existance. Lonely. It is one of the most depressing, hardest things I have experienced.  Alzheimer's has got to be THE most horrible, insidious disease. No one knows what it's like because NO ONE gets better to tell about it.  You cannot express if you're in pain, hungry, thirsty. Nothing. It's long. It's drawn out.  It's the definition of suffering.

 

These past few months, the Lord has helped my understanding of suffering greatly. As believers, we are not immune to suffering.  (By suffering, I am not meaning, persecution, but rather suffering due to living in a fallen world.) Being "good" does not merit an easy life.  Really, being a true believer should be the hardest life there is to live, because not only could we have suffering just because we live in a fallen world, but persecution on top of that!

 

Since dealing with ongoing headaches these past few months, I have really questioned "what am I doing wrong?" I continuously prayed for the Lord to reveal some glaring sin in my life I wasn't dealing with. I questioned the genuiness of my salvation. Maybe I'm not saved? Why else would the Lord allow me to go through this? "God, I could serve you SO MUCH BETTER if I were healthy!"

 

After talking with a wise friend, she pointed out to me that scripture says suffering is either as a result of sin in our lives OR it is to cause someone to be more fruitful, bringing God more glory.

 

"But! Lord! I could be more fruitful if I were healthy all the time! I could do so much more!"  Then, she wisely pointed out that God doesn't need our service. He is Self-sufficient. He is all powerful. He doesn't NEED ANYTHING! Including all the "work" I do for His body. He may want my fruit to come out of pain & suffering.

 

Ouch.

 

I am beginning to understand that God does has a purpose and a plan for suffering.  Allowing His children to go through suffering is not cruel. It's loving. When I understand that I deserve HELL then I learn to embrace the suffering of this life all the more. God is so loving to let me suffer a little while on this earth knowing my reward is NOT here! It causes me to long for His return all the more!  It has also given me a deep, great compassion for others who suffer even more so than my light affliction.  It has shown me how detestable pride is to God. How dare I think I deserve to live a painless, healthy, easy life, as if I deserve that?  It has caused me to see this world through new eyes. I no longer see the world as a fun, exciting place to live.  I see it as a fallen world, groaning for the time that it may be restored by its Maker.

 

   May this be my song:

 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 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! I Peter 1:3-7