Why Pain and Suffering?

Suggested by: RLC

The answer to this question is not a one liner, and I doubt that the answer, by its self, would comfort anyone.

GOD created the "laws" of this reality in the beginning. The physical reality is a shadow of the spiritual reality, which is a reflection of GOD's Nature. All of the aspects of GOD's Creation serve a good purpose--even death. Since this reality is a temporary reality, all things must die in one way or another. The natural way is old age, but there are many other ways as we well know. Many of those other ways are the direct result of decisions made by Man, whether through ignorance or on purpose. This reality was created as a medium for Man to learn and grow until the purpose of Man is fulfilled in the body of Christ. During the learning process Man will get bad results when he does anything incorrectly and good results when he does it correctly. This is the only way any reality can really work.

The example I consider when I contemplate pain and suffering is that of gravity. We readily recognize that gravity serves a good purpose. It serves this purpose according to the good purpose it was created to have. Therefore, there is the law of gravity. When we understand the law of gravity, we can then use it for good purposes in our daily life; but, if someone takes a little baby to the top of a building and throws it off the roof, GOD does not change the law of gravity to save the baby. The law of gravity acts on the baby's body to pull it to the ground at high speed; and that body will be damaged beyond the ability to support life after it hits the ground. The baby dies. Could GOD have prevented this evil from happening? Certainly! Was GOD the ultimate cause of the baby's early death? Yes, HE was because HE created the law of gravity.

The above concept permeates the entire Creation. If someone doesn't do the things that produce and maintain a strong immune system--whether out of ignorance or just laziness--that someone could become very ill from a bacteria or virus that someone with a strong immune system easily destroys without even getting ill.

If a pet dies from an unexpected illness--instead of old age, a possible reason is that Man did something in the past that weakened the ability of the pet to fight the bacteria or virus that produced the illness. Perhaps the mother drank some polluted water while she was pregnant, and the pollution changed the normal development of the fetus enough that the pet was born with a weak immune system. Who is to say? But, there is always a good reason.

As a child I begged my parents for a puppy until they let me have a mutt that a neighbor was giving away. I was deliriously happy. After only a few days, the puppy followed me down to the street when I carried the trash out just before school. My step-father drove down with my step-brothers and sister in the car to pick me up to go to school. I told him I wanted to take the puppy back and put him in the back porch. He told me to get in the car because the puppy would go back on his own. As we drove away, I looked back with fear filling my heart. I watched as the puppy stood poised on the curb, seeming to wait as a car approached. Just at the right (wrong) moment the puppy ran out under the front wheel of the car--fulfilling my worse fear, the very one I had envisioned in my mind. Who caused the puppy's death? Was it my step-father? Now, I believe it could have been my fear as much as anything. Perhaps if I had pictured the puppy going back to the house with love in my heart instead of running under the wheel of the car through fear in my heart, that would have been the result. We are to love not fear. Was this an early lesson of that fact? I certainly believe it is a possibility. I only know that the puppy did exactly what I pictured would happen in my mind through the fear that was filling my mind. He even waited on the curb until the perfect time arrived for what I feared to happen. Fear can freeze someone on the railroad tracts when they have plenty of time to get out of the way--fulfilling their fear and causing their death. Incorrect emotions can ruin our health and result in many other problems; so I do not consider it all that far-fetched that my fear killed my puppy.

Side Note: In a Natural Medicine class I was in recently, the instructor requested a woman to come to the front. The instructor asked her to turn her back on the class and extend her right arm straight out from the shoulder. The instructor then asked the class to think good things of the woman when the instructor put her thumb up and bad things when she put her thumb down. The woman never knew which way the thumb was turned, but she was stronger when the instructor's thumb was up while pressing down on the woman's hand and weaker when the instructor's thumb was turned down. It was a quick experiment that worked in that instance. Is this the power of group prayer? When we pray should we do it from the love in our heart, or the fear? Will prayer have any chance of working if we do it from the fear in our heart? There are spiritual laws that we can use correctly or incorrectly also!

Many things happen that we may not want to happen, and sometimes we do not know the reason. There is always a reason, though; and that reason is good relative to GOD's overall purpose for Man. We should seek to understand the reason because in that way we grow in understanding GOD's Nature and HIS Purpose.

GOD Bless.

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