Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary

Why does God allow Christians to suffer?

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From Stan at Birds of the Air blog.

Excerpt:

The oh-so-common question hangs out there all the time: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” My canned answer is, I believe, true — “They don’t. There are no good people.” — but I have to admit that it’s unsatisfying. I mean, aren’t Christians “justified” — declared righteous? Sure, Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone” but it’s also true that “For our sake He made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). “Okay … sure … we are not good, but we are declared good, so, Stan, how about a genuine answer?” Can we actually provide an answer to the question? I think so.

First, I need to be careful here. God has specific reasons for specific things and I would not want to try to delve into His specific ideas because, well, He hasn’t seen fit to share them with me. So I won’t be doing specifics. On the other hand, the Bible is not mute on the subject. So let’s go with what we can know. We know, for instance, that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him. It naturally follows, then, that “bad things” are not, in the final analysis, bad. So remember that what we’re talking about is the unpleasant, the uncomfortable, the painful — suffering — but not bad. Still, what’s good about suffering? Well, here’s a list of things I found in my Bible. You check yours and see if you have any of these, too.

He has a list of six possible reasons, and here is my favorite:

3. Your individual troubles provide a platform from which you can comfort others. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, Who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort, too” (2 Cor 1:3-5).

This is a big one for me, because I am such a good risk calculator and non-conformist that I avoid a lot of suffering simply by not doing anything dumb just because other people are doing stupid things. But once in a while, the opportunity comes along to suffer for righteousness sake. Then you have to take that opportunity to serve and the benefit you get is that your heart softens to others who are hurting, but who are accountable and repentant. What good is it to make good decisions if you don’t then turn to others who want to follow Jesus and help them?

The best reason why God allows suffering, I think, is so that we can follow Christ by imitating him in self-sacrificial love. It is hard to love someone self-sacrificially, especially when they neither recognize nor approve of the sacrifice that is being made to love them, but they just treat it as an entitlement, or worse – as a unnecessary brake on their selfish pursuit of pleasure.

I was once chatting with the brilliant and complicated ECM about whether I would allow myself to be eaten by ferocious lions for my faith, and I told him that although I would hope to be faithful, that physical courage was not one of my strengths, and I would probably cave. I just don’t like violence or the sight of blood. I didn’t grow up that way. But I did say this. I don’t get the opportunity to die for my faith every day. But every day I have the opportunity to die a little to myself by saying no to the temptation to just dump my faith and do whatever I want to be happy.

There is no shortage of time and money for me to pursue pleasure. And sometimes, I look around at what has happened to me (chastity, loneliness), and I wonder where God is. Doesn’t he know that I want to be husband and father? Why did he create me in this miserable time of feminism, socialism, and statism? There is a temptation to want to forget the obligations of that vertical relationship and just make myself happy here and now. But I think that part of the Christian life is being the friend of Jesus even when things look bleak.

And things will never be perfect. There is no way to go back in time and fix the troubles that I have had struggling to be faithful in a world that doesn’t want authentic Christianity. There were no Christians to comfort me and encourage me when I was younger, and there still aren’t many who help now. Those days are gone forever. And the only thing left for me now is to stand up again, spit out blood and teeth, pick up my sword and shield, and get back on my horse. And that is going to happen every day until I die.

That is what it means to be a Christian. You won’t get your way. You wont’ be happy. You won’t be like everyone else. You are always going to be different. Life is not going to be perfect. People are not going to like you for being a Christian. Especially not in the church! But when you suffer all of this, you will know what it feels like to follow and imitate Jesus, and that makes the friendship closer.

I think it’s important to be smart about faith. When I entered my relationship with Jesus, I knew that there would be challenges. I resolved to avoid sin as much as I could, to avoid peer pressure, to work hard, to save money, and to study apologetics. Obviously, no one is perfect. But I wanted to be ready for everything that life might throw at me. I expect to be challenged. I expected to suffer. I have prepared by becoming stronger and stronger. There will be no retreat. No surrender. I will go down with this ship. Faith is a very meticulous thing. You plan it out, and you plan on what you need to do to keep the faith. You don’t wait for the last minute and then hope to succeed by magic. Dig your trenches. Erect your fortifications. Protect your supply lines. Prepare your reserves for a counter-attack.

1 Peter 3:14-17:

14But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.”

15But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

16keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

17It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

Here’s my best post on the problem of evil, if you want more.

And my best post on why self-denial as part of a friendship with Jesus is the condition for going to Heaven.

Commentary

Is it wrong for women to complain about their husbands in public?

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DISCLAIMER: Women are allowed to complain about abuse, addiction, adultery and abandonment to their friends, and they are are justified in doing so. This post is about complaining about picking up socks and not fixing the sink.

According to Ginny at Ruth Blog, it is wrong. And I agree.

Excerpt:

Does this sound familiar?  “My husband drives me crazy!  How hard can it be to pick up a sock and put it in the laundry?  I mean, it’s not like he’s actually busy–he hasn’t fixed the leaky sink that I mentioned two months ago, or mowed the lawn, or cleaned up that mess in the garage.  And now that football has started, I never see him…”

I used to join in with this sort of talk. I considered it “casual complaining”–nothing serious, certainly. Sometimes I would even trot out my husband’s faults in an effort to sympathetically let a girlfriend know that her husband isn’t all that bad–all husbands “do stuff like that”. I hoped it would make her see that it really wasn’t worth complaining about. But that probably wasn’t the effect; my “complaining” ended up justifying her complaining.

Then something I heard (on the radio? at a seminar?) made me think about what I was doing to my husband.  It was terrible–taking private faults and making them public; taking small lapses and making them seem big; taking a man whom I love and respect, and denigrating him, belittling him. And worst of all, I was doing it where he couldn’t even defend himself. Just terrible.

So I stopped. It wasn’t too hard, if I caught myself starting to talk that way. The problem was that often times I wouldn’t even notice what I was doing until I was already well into it. Now it has been many years, and I believe it has really made a difference.  I found that changing my words changed my attitude; changing my attitude changed my actions; changing my actions changed his attitude; changing his attitude changed his actions. Win, win, win!!!

Wow, now that woman will have a husband who will love her to the ends of the Earth. And for good reason!

Here’s an excerpt from Dr. Laura’s book about the care and feeding of husbands:

“A good man is hard to find, not to keep.” That sentence should really make you stop and think. As a radio talk-show host/psychotherapist, I’ve got to tell you how remarkably true and sad it is that so many women struggle to hold on to some jerk, keep giving an abusive or philandering man yet another chance, have unprotected sex with some guy while barely knowing his last name, agree to shack up and risk making babies with some opportunist or loser, all in a pathetic version of a pursuit for love, but will resent the hell out of treating a decent, hardworking, caring husband with the thoughtfulness, attention, respect, and affection he needs to be content.

It boggles my mind.

What further puts me in boggle overdrive is how seemingly oblivious and insensitive many women are to how destructive they are being to their men and consequently to their marriages. Women will call me asking me if it’s alright to go off on extended vacations “without him” when they want some freedom or R&R, or if it’s okay to cut him off from sex because they’re annoyed about something or just too tired from their busy day, or if they really have to make him a dinner when he gets home from work because it’s just too tedious to plan meals, or if it’s okay to keep stuff from him (like family or financial issues) because his input is unnecessary, or if they’re really obligated to spend time with his family (in-laws or stepkids), or if they really have to show interest in his hobbies when they’re bored silly by them, or — well, you get the idea.

I spent the weekend listening to Dr. Laura’s “The Proper Caring and Feeding of Husbands” as well, so I am really positive about women in general right now. This book is the best book for women to read to know how to handle themselves around men. The fact that so many women bought it says a lot about women.

What are my thoughts? I really don’t think that women should say hurtful things about men who love them in public or even in private to other women. Yet so many (all?) of them seem to think that it is normal. But it really hurts men emotionally. Needing approval and encouragement from the woman he loves is the man’s biggest emotional need. I think men do a lot of things to protect, provide and lead that women just don’t appreciate – probably because they don’t understand how a man’s role really is.

I think that there are times when some women have a double-standard that allows them to complain and complain about men, but if they do anything wrong, they just shift the blame to someone else, (i.e. – men), usually by dredging up things that happened sometime around the Hadean era, when the Earth was still cooling. That is really unattractive and something men need to test for during courtship. Men should always ask women for help, always hold them accountable, and always give them responsibilities. See how seriously the woman takes her obligations to other people.

MCSpinster, you are not allowed to comment on this post.

Commentary

What kinds of experiences do women have after an abortion?

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Here’s an essay about post-abortion trauma from Public Discourse. (H/T RuthBlog)

Excerpt:

Many of these women cannot go outside for fear of “triggers”—the sight or sound of things that will bring back the abortion experience and cause panic attacks. Triggers include the sound of a vacuum cleaner (many abortions are done by the vacuuming out of the fetus from the uterus) or the music that was playing at the abortion clinic while the abortion was being performed. The sight of pregnant women, or maternity clothes, or babies, or toddlers, or school-children, or of the place (even the neighborhood or town) where the abortion took place can all serve as triggers. Other triggers are anniversaries of all kinds, especially of the abortion and of the EBD (expected birth date), and, in particular, Mother’s Day.

What is particularly striking is that most of the women who have these powerful emotional reactions to their abortion are stunned by them. They were not opposed to abortion; many were actively pro-choice. They were blind-sided by their own reaction. One woman lamented—and thousands of others echo her mystified anguish—“If this was the right decision, why do I feel so terrible?”

Research indicates that there are various psychological or political factors that may contribute to this disconnect between the anticipated and the actual emotional outcome. Since this disturbing phenomenon is so widespread, and found among women from varied backgrounds and different parts of the world, it seems likely that the brain itself—in particular, the nature of women’s brains—may shed some particularly useful light on this unexpected negative emotional reaction.

The authors go on to list various types of trauma. One of the co-authors is Dr. Paul C. Vitz, who wrote an amazing book on why people become atheists. Here’s an essay on the topic. I’ve got the book – it came all shrink-wrapped! Weird.

You may also be interested in the New Zealand study on abortion and women’s mental health that I blogged about before.