1 CORINTHIANS 10: 13
If God is as good as the Bible tells
us He is (Nahum 1:7); “why
do people suffer?”
This is the question on the lips of many folks today. A more staggering
question they also ask is this,“If God is so good, why does He allow people and even Christians to suffer?
I have come across folks who believe on one
hand that God is not the one who makes people suffer, but on the other hand they
also believe that somehow He allows it to happen for one reason or the other, probably to teach them something.
A pastor friend of mine, after being
ill, passed on to be with the Lord. We prayed, laid hands on him, etc., yet he still passed on. The question which almost naturally arises in most peoples
mind is, “maybe that’s how God wants it
to be”. If that’s your belief, then it means you are misconceiving God. That's not how God wants things to be. Things happen because people allow them to happen.
You see, one of the greatest errors
of the Church world today is that so many Christians misunderstand and misrepresent
God. Quite a number of preachers are guilty of this too. They assume and say a lot of
erroneous things about God. Things that are not just true. Just because you prayed about something and nothing
happened does not mean that’s the way God wants it to be. But this is the
conclusion of many. Many read the Bible and quote lots of verses and passages, yet they lack revelation knowledge and understanding. You must know that Having a mountain of information does not amount to revelation knowledge or understanding. information is of value only if we put it into its right context. . Jesus said, "let him that readeth understand" (Mark 13:14). This means it is possible for one to read and not understand.This is the problem with so many Bible readers. They read and yet lack understanding. Very few truly understand the many truths that Jesus speak of.
Many Christians fail to see the way
of escape which God makes for them, so they fail to walk in it. Others may see
it but willfully choose not to accept it.Too many people use negative
circumstances or experiences to evaluate Gods dealings with them. When they
encounter problems, they feel that God has turned His back on them, otherwise,
why would He allow such to befall them.
If you are one of those that reason
this way, then there’s Good news for you.
God isn’t the one who allows evil to
befall anyone, even the wicked people of this world. He’s not the one who makes
people suffer. He’s not even the one who permits suffering on people. If you
have a contrary view to this then it means you are yet to understand the true
nature of God. You must understand that God only permits people to receive what
they choose for themselves. These are two different things. What I mean is that,
what you allow for yourself determines the extent to which the power of God can
work in your life. God allows you to have for yourself what you allow for
yourself. People are the cause of their own problems and that of other people.
Men are the author or cause of their predicaments. It can be directly or
indirectly. People create problems for themselves or other people through, the wrong
decisions they make, ignorance or lack of knowledge, etc.
For instance a nation suffers as a
result of the wrong decisions made by the leaders, children suffer because of
the wrong decisions made by their parents or guardians. Likewise accidents
occur either through the recklessness of the driver, or because the driver or pilot
is ignorant of the malfunction of certain parts of the system.
You see, Satan is the author of all
evil and natural disaster, not God. Basically, there are three causes of
predicaments. One is by the problems people bring on other people. I call this-
People induced Factor. The
other way is by what people bring on themselves either willfully or as a result
of lack of knowledge. I call this Self-induced
Predicament. The third is through natural disasters caused by the
distortions of nature, i.e. Natural
Factor. The distortion of nature is the cause of birth defects,
earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, diseases like Ebola, cancer, HIV-AIDS, etc. Nature
became distorted as a result of Adams fall in the Garden of Eden. Paul categorically
tell us that through the fall of Adam sin, sickness, death, and all forms of
suffering entered into the world or the human realm (Romans 5: 12,14,17,18,19). But God through
Jesus Christ, has provided for us a way of escape.
In most cases, we let things happen
to us because of lack of adequate knowledge, which causes us to sometimes make wrong
decisions. Lack of knowledge causes people to make the wrong decisions. And you
know the adversary takes advantage of people’s lack of knowledge. Take for
instance, If you knew something terrible was coming your way, you would do everything
possible to avert it because you already knew about it, right? What if you didn’t know? What if no one told you or you
never got a revelation about it, what would you do? That question is left for you to answer. This as
Christians is one of the reasons we are to constantly depend on the Holy Spirit
for guidance. God wants us to constantly live and depend on the Holy Spirit.
You see, to a large extent we can avoid these evil predicaments or even prevent
them from occurring. We can escape negative circumstances to the degree we
yield or depend on the Holy Spirit through faith-filled prayer and our response
to His rhema.
At times the Holy Spirit gives us
promptings that we ignore. In most cases people don’t really hear because they
haven’t trained themselves to hear from God. What I mean is that most
Christians have never known how to distinguish the inner promptings of the Holy
Spirit from their feelings or their brain. And you know you have to train
yourself to be able to hear from the Holy Spirit. Hearing from the Holy Spirit
does not necessarily mean you will hear an audible voice. It may just be a prompting
in your heart, or an inner knowing. So you see, many are suffering because they
have never understood these things. You see, you can develop yourself
spiritually through the word of God and fellowship with the Holy Spirit that it
becomes easy for you to know things before they happen. Practice they say makes
progress. You are forever blessed.
Prize Chukwuka
Prize Chukwuka
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