This is an old post that I had started writing on New Years eve and didn't ever finish it until now. A friend of mine just found out a good friend of his took his own life unexpectedly today and it has moved me to finish it now.( 2/5/14)
Sorrow allows us to experience joy. It is a strange thought but really consider it. Sorrow makes the joy in life much sweeter, and if you did not have sorrow, you would not know joy. Joy would be completely indifferent to you. You can not know how sweet the taste of joy is without first experiencing the bitterness of sorrow. More importantly you wouldn't know how good God is, even in the pain. God is good even in the deepest depths of sorrow. He's still sovereign even when we can't see it and we just want to shout at Him, screaming "where are you?" "Why me!!?".
For awhile that statement, "God is good even in the midst of sorrow" irritated me. How could He be good in this horrible pain? How could He even possibly be good in the midst of so much pain- when everything else was falling apart in my life, including myself- how could He be good in the midst of so much pain? After all isn't He supposed to be protecting me from it? Isn't He supposed to answer my prayers to take the pain away?
My answer (*which is not perfect) is a mix of systematic theology and personal reflection. He's good because He is God and He can not be anything other than good. For Him to not be good would be contrary to His wondrous character. It seems so simple and almost too simple but since God is never changing, always faithful and wise, and never acts in a way contradictory to His character, He can not possibly be a "bad god" or an "unkind god". It is easy to understand this in the context of mere knowledge, yet not easy to apply to our hearts and spiritually understand. Until that is, we experience sorrow,and therefore search Him even more. We then finally realize, to find our joy in Him, all we have to do is just set the gaze of our souls upon Him. He has already persued us with His love this whole time, speaking through both our joy and pain. All we have to do is just listen and let Him in. We will then see His goodness. C.S. Lewis once said, "We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world" Once God shouts to us in our sorrow, we will be so much more attentive to the whispers of His melodious voice in the pleasures of life. The times of joy that He has gifted upon us will be that much more evident because we have the experiences of sorrows to compare them to. Faith is not looking inward and trying to find Him in us, it is looking outward and finding our joy in Him. He's already been there chasing us- all our lives- with His steadfast love and mercy. All we got to do is remain still and focus on Him.
Sorrow allows us to experience joy. It is a strange thought but really consider it. Sorrow makes the joy in life much sweeter, and if you did not have sorrow, you would not know joy. Joy would be completely indifferent to you. You can not know how sweet the taste of joy is without first experiencing the bitterness of sorrow. More importantly you wouldn't know how good God is, even in the pain. God is good even in the deepest depths of sorrow. He's still sovereign even when we can't see it and we just want to shout at Him, screaming "where are you?" "Why me!!?".
For awhile that statement, "God is good even in the midst of sorrow" irritated me. How could He be good in this horrible pain? How could He even possibly be good in the midst of so much pain- when everything else was falling apart in my life, including myself- how could He be good in the midst of so much pain? After all isn't He supposed to be protecting me from it? Isn't He supposed to answer my prayers to take the pain away?
My answer (*which is not perfect) is a mix of systematic theology and personal reflection. He's good because He is God and He can not be anything other than good. For Him to not be good would be contrary to His wondrous character. It seems so simple and almost too simple but since God is never changing, always faithful and wise, and never acts in a way contradictory to His character, He can not possibly be a "bad god" or an "unkind god". It is easy to understand this in the context of mere knowledge, yet not easy to apply to our hearts and spiritually understand. Until that is, we experience sorrow,and therefore search Him even more. We then finally realize, to find our joy in Him, all we have to do is just set the gaze of our souls upon Him. He has already persued us with His love this whole time, speaking through both our joy and pain. All we have to do is just listen and let Him in. We will then see His goodness. C.S. Lewis once said, "We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world" Once God shouts to us in our sorrow, we will be so much more attentive to the whispers of His melodious voice in the pleasures of life. The times of joy that He has gifted upon us will be that much more evident because we have the experiences of sorrows to compare them to. Faith is not looking inward and trying to find Him in us, it is looking outward and finding our joy in Him. He's already been there chasing us- all our lives- with His steadfast love and mercy. All we got to do is remain still and focus on Him.
