A Little Sense in Suffering

Before I start my third post, I just want to thank all of you who have been checking out my blog. I never expected to have so many hits, especially this early on. I truly appreciate and love every single one of you! Please let me know how I can improve my blog or let me get to know you by commenting or e-mailing me at tylerlivingdifferently@gmail.com. Jesus is just plain amazing, there is no getting around that.

Ok, number 3!

Life on Earth is not meant to be easy, not in the slightest sense. I believe that our existence on this planet is what God uses to shape us into Christ-like people who belong by his side in heaven, and for people to undergo great change, suffering and pain is often required. When you want to change your body by losing fat and building muscle, the cliche phrase, "no pain, no gain" is completely true. If you do not push yourself to the point of exhaustion, you are not going to change your body. God uses suffering in other areas of our lives to help shape us into the sanctified people he originally desired us to be before the Fall. Without pain, we assume everything about ourselves and our lives is perfect and dandy, believing that we as humans can take care of ourselves without God. When we suffer through pain, God uses that to show us our weakness and dependence upon him and our need for His grace and love.

I suffered through many familial and social issues throughout my childhood and through most of high school, but senior year, God finally decided to reach me through my pain. Because I felt so alone and confused, I was willing to listen and talk to people to try and understand life, and that is how I learned about Him and how Jesus saved me. If my pre-college life had been super peachy, I would not have opened my heart to new things. I know myself, and I would have been content in my current situation and not cared about learning about something new, especially God. Due to my acknowledgement of my brokenness, my depression, my loneliness, my confusion, my hopelessness I was able to open my heart to something different; in fact, I fought for something different, I wanted to change things and turn life around. When I was posed with the idea that this Jesus guy could be the answer, I was willing to give anything a try.

In the movie, Courageous, a father loses his young daughter when she is in a car accident. He was never a good father and often neglected his older son, caring only about himself. Through his suffering of the loss of his daughter, God reaches out to him and helps change him as a person. The father realizes how he has been an awful father and husband for the first time in his life and recognizes the need for change. Not only does he work to change himself, but he teams up with some of his friends and they sign pledges to be better fathers and husbands, which starts a movement that eventually spreads throughout his whole town.

Recently at college, God has used my pain from relationship issues, friend issues, family tensions, and more to show me that His love is the only thing I can rely on in this universe. He is teaching me to depend upon his love, instead of a girlfriend or friends or material things. For a few years now I have been depending on this one girl for much of my happiness. Whenever I would feel sad or worthless, I would use our relationship to give myself some pride and satisfaction. On my birthday this year, God decided to teach me not rely on relationships with girls or anyone else on Earth for satisfaction and completeness when he took the relationship as I knew it away. I have also had a major issue with dependance upon material things for satisfaction and giving myself a sense of worth or pride. I always spend my money on ridiculously expensive things that I can barely afford and have in the past had a problem with being "braggadocios" and trying to make myself feel cool and successful because I have things. Well that is just plain dumb. As I experienced during my low this semester, even when i had all of the objects I could dream of, without living for God, you can never be satisfied. I already had very expensive and high quality headphones, but I was not satisfied so I ran to BestBuy and got some more. Well i have been suffering from that bad purchase since. Did the second set of headphones make me fee any better? No. Only when i decided to start living for Jesus again and leave my sinful college ways behind did I begin to feel satisfaction and joy again. From this suffering, I have begun to let God take the reigns more and more and my life has been ever improving. I do not worry about my future as much anymore because I know God is watching out for me and will not let me fall into anything that I cannot handle. I now have more friends than I have ever had in my life, I have more hope for a happy future for myself and my family than I have ever had, and I smile every morning when I wake up. Why wouldn't you just trust God so your life could be awesome? I promise you, it is worth it.

Suffering sucks. No matter how hard, and no matter what your spiritual beliefs may be, when you are going through pain in life, try as hard as you can to not just ask, "Why me?". Try to not just feel bad and depressed, try to see how this trial can better shape you for the future and what you can learn. God loves you and will not allow you to go through anything that you cannot handle. Keep your faith my friends.

What have you been suffering through recently? Is there anyway I can pray for you? Do you have any awesome God stories about suffering and how it has changed you for the better? Please comment below or shoot me an e-mail at tylerlivingdifferently@gmail.com. Also, if you like my blog, please subscribe or follow by e-mail to the right, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks!

Ty