The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 7 – 1
Life needn’t be hard. Life usually is hard. But it needn’t be. Why would God afflict us and torment us if He didn’t have to? The one scripture we need for this lesson plainly tells us He doesn’t. Lamentations 3:33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
Think about it; if you were doing everything right, walking down the straight and narrow way… why would He risk you losing your balance? So there is a simple lesson here; if life is hard, you’re doing it wrong.
Consider the metaphor God gave Paul, of “kicking against the goad (whip)” (Acts 26:14). If you’re pulling God’s plow, and you’re doing it meekly, humbly, following the touch of the rein cheerfully, God wouldn’t even need to carry a whip.
But if you’re dragging the plow slowly, sullenly, stubbornly pulling your own way, forcing Him to constantly bring you back onto the path… well, at the end of the day you’ll be exhausted from fighting His will and bruised from His correction. And yes, your life will be hard. But what if you just… didn’t need the whip?
Do you spank your child for fun? Do you afflict him daily just to teach him some abstract lesson about suffering or patience? Of course not; you afflict him for his good (Hebrews 12:9-10), and punish him for specific faults.
Things which he is well capable of correcting – in fact, things which are so obvious, he should have already corrected them! Likewise, we are chastened for our profit. But what if we don’t need it? We are punished for things we should have already seen on our own, and stopped doing on our own (1 Corinthians 11:29-32).
So if we are already on the straight and narrow way – at least, as well as can be expected at the time – why would God make your life harder if you are already doing the best you can?
Now you and God may disagree about what “doing your best” really means. But if God is convinced you’re doing all you can, will He add more to your burden? Revelation 2:24-25. Many in Thyatira, if they just kept on the way they were going, were good enough and did not need to be cast into tribulation (Revelation 2:19-23).
Because God gives tribulation to us “according to our works”. Tribulation is the clear context in this passage – if you need spanked, you’ll get spanked. His instructions to everyone else is simply “keep my works unto the end” ( Revelation 2:26-27).
God has a very specific goal He needs us to reach, and as long as He’s confident that we are pulling the plow fast enough and in the right direction to get us there on time… He doesn’t need to use the whip (Proverbs 10:13). Now wouldn’t you rather be one of those people? The choice, as always, is yours.
CHOOSE YOUR CORRECTION
We are human, and from time to time we are going to insist God teach us the hard way. But when your human dad is in the process of spanking you, should you “patiently endure”? Should you “pray for him to stop”? Or should you try to understand what you should have done differently, so you never have to go through this again?
Suffering is not meant to be simply endured, not something to be waited out. Suffering is meant to teach us the price of sin. Suffering is meant to motivate us follow 2 Corinthians 13:5; because if you can judge yourself before God punishes you… why would God punish you?
Yet it’s easy to be distracted from the rather boring job of judging oneself. And when things are going well, there’s little reason; who asks himself, “why is this happening to me?” when everything is going great? Ecclesiastes 7:13-14.
So God has created the day of adversity to get our attention. There is nothing like a little suffering to motivate us to take stock of our life and make us “consider” what changes need to be made in it. Is today a bad day? Then ask yourself… how are you acting today, compared to the last good day? What choices caused this day to be this way?
With very rare exceptions, your choices and actions, not some mysterious will of God, determine the comfort and peace you have in your life (Proverbs 16:7, Isaiah 54:14-17). Today’s Christians don’t like to hear that, because it puts responsibility on them. It makes everything wrong with their life their fault.
But the sad fact is, it usually is your fault. If you are chastened, it is generally because “God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day” (Psalms 7:11). Not because of some unknowable will of God, but because you need to do something differently. Something very “knowable”.
Yes, there are some things that happen because of some third party’s sins (John 9:2-3). But is it really likely that your car broke down so that “the works of God could be made manifest in you”? Isn’t it more likely because you didn’t budget the time or money to take care of it?
Most things that happen to us, even ones that aren’t really our fault, per se, could easily have been avoided if our soul was doing its job (Proverbs 22:3). No, no one could have known that your car would break down at that exact moment… but anyone could have seen that your car was 20 years old and made funny noises when it went uphill.
A wise soul would have known it was going to break down soon, and a prudent man would have taken steps to protect himself. So while you didn’t cause the car to break down, since your soul failed to chart a path around this very foreseeable problem, it was still your fault.
Likewise, you couldn’t have known you’d get this disease, at this moment, but you’ve known for years your diet was a mess. A prudent soul would have “seen the evil to come”. Since you failed to prioritize your health over, say, your spirit’s need to be useful to others, it’s still your fault.
And yes, you were minding your own business and didn’t pick a fight with the devil, but Satan attacks no one who matters to God without God’s express permission (Job 1:9-12). So if Satan attacks you, it is de facto God’s punishment, because God’s inaction is itself a judgment against you.
YOUR FAULT
It’s worth a pause for a second to express what “it’s your fault” means. It doesn’t mean “God is gonna getcha”. God has already “gotcha”; that’s why you’re there. This is not a question of sin, not about paying God back, not about the first resurrection or going to some imaginary hell.
None of the things people get worked up over about guilt and shame are relevant, here, or most other places for that matter. No, the fact that it’s your fault is GREAT NEWS! It’s FAR better news than if it were God’s ineffable will!
Because if God is punishing the world with boils, and you were just one more person being afflicted, that would suck. Because it would mean there was nothing you could do about it! But the fact that you brought this upon yourself means you can make it go away by yourself!
Maybe you should have eaten healthier. You can’t really undo that now. But you can start eating right now; take responsibility for your health, study your condition, remembering to meekly, with a broken spirit, hear alternative natural doctors that the medical profession would consider “quacks”, and you’ll find almost every condition can be healed naturally. Just by going back to the way God meant for you to live in the first place.
Maybe you didn’t pick a fight with the devil; maybe he was sent to harass you for your sins. Yet you can end the fight: James 4:7. Not by exorcising him! (Not usually, anyway.) But by simply submitting to God like you should have done in the first place, and then there will be nothing for the devil to do!
If you deal with your anger against someone, either by realizing it wasn’t their fault (Luke 23:34, Genesis 50:15-21); or by going to your neighbor and working it out (Matthew 18:15, Proverbs 25:9-10), or, failing that, by accepting that it’s not your job to make them treat you right (Romans 12:17-19), then you will give the devil no place to torment you (Ephesians 4:27), and no reason to hang around.
Get that? You didn’t sin; your neighbor stole from you. It wasn’t your fault! But your attitude when you were stolen from gives the devil a way to manipulate you, a way to hijack your spirit and whisper that you deserve justice, and that you have the right to “get him back”.
And if you heed that voice, this is your fault! Certainly understandable; but a flaw in your character nonetheless. But if your soul can convince your spirit that this is not your problem, that it’s not your job to make your brother treat you fairly, the devil will flee from you!
Yes, all of these things are hard at first. And it’s much easier on your spirit to believe that it’s someone else’s fault. Who wouldn’t rather be told that God loves you, and you just need to be more patient and He will help you in His good time; but that’s exactly what the false prophets told Jeremiah’s people (Lamentations 2:14).
But making things easy on your spirit and your heart is exactly what got you here in the first place. And I promise you, the peace that comes with having solved these problems is infinitely better than the empty hope that God will take the beating away. See Isaiah 28:10-12.
Notice that: if you do these things (Isaiah 28:6), you will be the repairer of the BREACH in your spirit that caused your illness (Proverbs 18:14, 17:22). If you do these things you will be the restorer of the PATHS for your soul to walk in!
This is exactly what this lesson has been about; looking at the crooked path you’re walking, the path that’s exhausting you and confusing you, and STRAIGHTENING it; by stepping back, seeing the evil to come and avoiding it, you restore your own paths!
NOT MY FAULT!
God gave us bad days to get us to think about how we’re behaving differently from the good days, so we can figure out what to do better next time. Yet Christians today, when faced with adversity, react very differently than that.
I’ve never known a Christian who was being punished for his sins. Have you? When he’s having a bad day, and you ask him why, have you ever heard someone say “yeah, I sinned yesterday and God is really ticked at me right now”?
When the fact is, if they’re Christians at all, that has to be the reason at least SOME of the time, right? Hebrews 12:5-8. If you’re a child, you screw up and you get punished. And if you’re a Christian, you’re going to screw up and get punished. How often, of course, is up to you.
But what would it take for your average Christian to conclude that God, personally, was mad at them? What would it take for them to conclude that their “bad luck” was actually divine retribution? (Lamentations 3:37-38).
If your Christian friends survived being struck by lighting, they would blame the devil and thank God for protecting them. If their house burned down, they would blame the devil and thank God they weren’t hurt. If their firstborn died, they would say God works in mysterious ways, and “needed the child in heaven”.
There is literally nothing God could do that would get the attention of your average Protestant. Literally any bad luck is, ipso facto, the work of the devil; and any silver lining is, ipso facto, the work of God. Either the devil is tempting them, or God is teaching them patience. But it is never their fault.
Thus, they have made it impossible for God to correct them, by crafting a story that makes good things a blessing, and bad things the work of the devil, at most a test for them to endure. But nothing is ever a punishment, nothing is ever a reflection on their obedience (Jeremiah 8:5-7).
Now there’s a word for that, a word that unlocks a whole new section of Bible symbolism. And it involves the word “neck”.
SPIRITUAL NECKS
We’ve briefly touched on the symbolism of the human body before; how the head corresponds to the soul, and the body of course corresponds to the beast. The communication between these two fractions happens entirely through the neck; the neck, which has exactly 7 vertebrae in all mammals.
On one layer, this clearly represents the head/Jesus communicating with the woman/body through the seven spirits of God – pictured as the vertebrae in the neck. But in a more personal layer, it means that our soul, the “brain”, communicates with “the heart”, through the “spirit” – the neck.
To prove that last connection, see Proverbs 3:3. We know mercy is a spirit attribute. Why bind it about the “neck”? Proverbs 1:8-9. The instruction from your father/soul is grace – overlooking of sins of ignorance – to your head/soul. But the laws of your mother/church/spirit are chains about your neck.
Chains are of course, statutes; and where do statues go, if not the spirit? And where do the statutes come from, if not the mother? Proverbs 6:20-21. That is why the apostles called the statutes of Moses a “yoke upon the neck” (Acts 15:10).
Proverbs 3:22 refers back to Proverbs 3:13 with the word “they”, and concludes that wisdom and understanding are life to your soul and grace to your neck, respectively. And since understanding goes in the spirit, “neck” must be yet another near-synonym for spirit!
I say “near-synonym” because God never uses two words when one would do; so if He used two different words, they have a different meaning, however subtle. Take the case of “eye” and “flame” and “star”. These words, and many others, refer to angels. Yet not in precisely the same way.
Flame refers to the nature of the angel’s body (Psalms 104:4), while eye refers to the angel in his job as judge (Daniel 4:23), and star refers to an angel’s job as “lights of the world” (Genesis 1:16-17), which they would be if they brought God’s words (Job 25:5).
All of these words refer, broadly, to the same beings. And most of the time, we can treat them as synonyms… yet they are not the same word, and the meaning of each one differs meaningfully. Likewise, “neck” and “spirit” and “yoke” are not the same word, but for now we will treat them as such.
In the real world, it is upon the neck of the beast that the yoke is borne. Thus, using the neck as the symbol our receptiveness to the spirit is apt. Because when the neck is tender, it responds easily to the guidance of the yoke – and need not be “pricked” by the goad.
But when the neck is tensed it is stronger, less sensitive, not so easily guided by the plowman. And now you know why one of God’s favorite complaints about the Israelites is that they were stiff-necked – because their spirits were not broken! 2 Kings 17:14.
THE AFFLICTION OF THE UNRIGHTEOUS
As always, note the specific words God used in that verse; they would not hear – a spirit word – and instead hardened their NECKS! Why would they do that? To better resist the tugging of JESUS’ YOKE upon them! (Jeremiah 7:26).
The people I mentioned above who rationalize good and bad events neatly into little boxes labeled “work of God” and “work of the devil”, have made it impossible for their spirit to be reached by correction. No realistic amount of suffering will dent their spirit and cause it to consider that maybe they are the problem.
Thus, their spirit, whose job is to honestly digest all facts and draw conclusions from them, has been stiffened; God cannot guide their spirit, because every imaginable thing He could do to them is reinterpreted as proof God loves them and that Satan hates them.
And so when God tugs on their yoke, nothing happens because their necks have become as iron! (Isaiah 48:4). Because every pull, no matter what direction, is understood by their unbroken spirit “God loves you, keep doing what you’re doing!”
So a stiff neck, an unbroken spirit that is utterly committed to the direction it has chosen, can only be controlled with a stronger yoke. And a neck that has become like iron (necks never really become iron) requires a yoke of actual iron to control it! (Jeremiah 28:12-14).
A good beast will turn at the word of his farmer; a slightly worse beast will turn at the touch of the rein; worse animals will require a whip, a wooden yoke, an iron yoke, and so on… and God will use whichever yoke is required for you to get where He wants you to go. Your choice.
And if, even after a yoke of iron, you just can’t get a day’s work done without exhausting yourself beating the ox… well, that’s the beast you move to the head of the line to be butchered at your next feast (Proverbs 29:1).
Because even though you can always, with enough beatings, make it obey your will… there are plenty of other beasts who won’t make you work so hard to get your field plowed and your seed planted. Why bother with the worst ones?
WHY THIS PARTICULAR AFFLICTION
We tend to think of God as punishing us for specific sins, specific external acts; and while God does, on occasion, indulge in that, more often God punishes us for specific internal failings. What is the rod supposed to do? Proverbs 22:15. Who is God trying to deliver with the rod? Proverbs 23:13-14.
The rod drives foolishness from the heart and delivers the SOUL from the grave. To teach the soul wisdom (Proverbs 29:15). To teach the spirit not to try to control things it can’t control, and to free the soul from its prison (Psalms 142:1-7).
These are the things that cause God to bring us affliction (Lamentations 3:1). When we fail to properly lead our fractions, God presents us with challenges uniquely tailored to give our soul a chance to do better.
This problem, out of all the billions of unique problems in the universe, happened to you for a reason. If you believe that, it makes figuring out what to do differently a lot easier. What does this particular affliction say about how you need to BE different?
So when you’re suffering, whether literally or spiritually, metaphorically or actually, think less in terms of sins – though, of course, they are not to be ignored – than in terms of failures to lead your fractions well.
Perhaps you’ve kept the law perfectly today; but did you dismiss advice or reject criticism out of hand without even thinking about it? Perhaps you haven’t sinned against anyone in a year; but did you fail to see something that was right in front of you?
Did you fail to manage your life well enough to be on time? Did you share a meme on Facebook without checking the facts? Did you rush to tell someone your opinion, before you really understood the situation?
These are not sins, certainly. But they are evidence that your soul either isn’t in control of your fractions, or doesn’t have its eye on the goal clearly enough. And God brings affliction on you to show you how to solve these problems.
If you are having problems with your extended family, perhaps it’s because you’re not minding your business; or perhaps, because you’re not making them mind theirs (Proverbs 25:17). If you’re always running behind, maybe you need to force your beast to move faster, or remind it not to procrastinate.
If you’re overworked, maybe you should have used the word “no” more in your personal life; something you haven’t done because your heart wants people to like it; or because your spirit can’t bear to let your herd down.
These afflictions, and a few million other examples like them, loom large in the moment and seem unfixable when you’re in the midst of the crisis. Yet when you look back on them years later, in retrospect they are often absurdly simple to resolve.
SOUL PERSPECTIVE
The trick is getting your soul to take that perspective during the affliction, so you can see a path out of it. Remember, the soul should be above the petty day-to-day problems your heart and spirit deal with. Compared to the oxen and the yoke, how much work does the farmer actually do, walking behind the plow?
This gives him the perspective, the time, and the energy, to see ahead and guide them around obstacles towards their mutual goal. Likewise, your soul should be able to rise above the crisis and see this for what it is: a moment in time, a crisis which will pass, a tempest in a teapot from God’s perspective (and quite possibly, your own soul’s perspective as well).
Most of our conflicts are about as important as birds bickering over shiny pebbles. When your heart is set on something, it can’t see that. When your spirit is locked into a bitter struggle defending it, it can’t either.
Only your soul is equipped to say “wait a minute, why are we fighting over this pebble when there’s another perfectly nice one right over there?” (Genesis 26:19-22). And it is because our soul so often fails to do exactly that, that we need correction.
Which, when you think about it, is just a chance to do better. Because all trials and tribulations are not so much punishment as they are challenges which allow us to demonstrate that we have learned from our mistakes.
So no, the stress you feel today from taking on too much isn’t so much a divine punishment as it is the natural result of making bad choices. And the answer isn’t to beg God’s forgiveness, or to plead with Him to make the spanking stop… the answer is to start using the word “no” today.
Take the shortest route possible to keep your word, wrap up your existing responsibilities (Psalms 15:4b), and in even a few weeks your life will be less stressful. And then next time you feel like saying “sure, I can do that for you”, your soul might pause and think about whether you really should get into that situation again.
DOING IT THE EASY WAY
Obviously, there are a thousand thousand things we need to learn in this life, and God usually has something He can work on. Some reason to keep us in a more-or-less constant state of correction. But do we have a choice in how this correction happens? 1 Corinthians 4:21.
Which means that once again, if your life is hard, you’re doing it wrong. Remember, meekness is a spirit which is broken, and easily accepts new guidance. Given that, do the meek need affliction? Psalms 25:9.
On the contrary, Psalms 147:6. This does not mean that the meek are without fault; it doesn’t mean that they don’t have a lot yet to learn. But it means that God knows that they will learn it willingly, without fighting Him every step of the way (James 1:21).
The rod is meant to drive foolishness from the heart; if your soul is already doing that, why would God add to your problems? Why feed you with the bread of affliction, when you are willing to hear and obey the “still small voice”? Isaiah 30:20-21.
If God knows that you are swift to hear correction (James 1:19), why would He make you learn it the hard way anyway? (1 Peter 3:4). My dad always told me that if I listened when he talked, he wouldn’t have to yell. And if I listened when he yelled, he wouldn’t have to spank. Isn’t that how you would want to be treated, and how you treat your own children? Therefore, isn’t that the Golden Rule?
If your son needs spanked morning, noon, and night, it’s because he’s not listening to you. Therefore, if his backside is sore, it’s because he’s doing something wrong. And by the power of the Golden Rule, we know that the same is true of you and me.
THE BEAUTY OF CORRECTION
We fall short of God’s expectation and wander off the way (sin) when our heart leads us astray, or when our spirit binds us to go a direction it stubbornly insists is right. And an infantile soul finds it difficult to win these arguments with the heart and spirit.
And that is the beauty of punishment; not that it points out the sin, which on some level we usually knew we were committing; not that it helps us atone for our misdeeds, which Jesus already did; but that it gives our soul a weapon against our beast and spirit.
When you tell your beast “we shouldn’t eat so much sugar, it’s bad for our teeth”, the beast says “MOO! I want it!” This is not an argument a young soul wins easily. But when you can respond to “MOO!” by reminding your beast “do you remember how much that toothache hurt?”, then you have leverage.
When you ask it “do you want to feel that again?”, your beast can remember that pain and, as it is hesitating between lust and fear, your soul can guide it towards doing the right thing. And that is why you should glory in tribulations (Romans 5:3-4).
Remember, pain, hunger, heat, wet, these things afflict your body, not your soul. Stress, worry, anxiety, these things mostly affect your spirit, not your soul. So your soul, rising above these petty things, should use these punishments as tools! Tools to convince your heart and spirit that it must let you make better choices next time.
That is why Paul gloried in his infirmities (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Because Paul’s SOUL’S strength was made perfect by his BODY’S weakness! That is why God sent a rebellious angel to torment him (2 Corinthians 12:7-8), which God didn’t remove simply because he asked. Why should He have? The angel was there for a reason! Why rebuke a devil, when the flaw that drew him there was still uncorrected? (Luke 11:24-26).
Paul needed his heart to suffer, because only then could be keep his pride in check (2 Corinthians 12:6, 11), a problem which, as this chapter states (and demonstrates), he still had not overcome! And without that continual reminder of his weakness, he would not have been able to remind his heart of the price of pride.
Just as without the chains of the Romans, he would not have been able to remind his spirit of the price of stubbornness. The cost of it driving him “bound in the spirit” to Jerusalem. That’s why Paul, the soul, still NEEDED these external bits and whips to help him control his heart and spirit… and why you may as well! (Acts 7:51).
This may describe you at this very moment; it certainly has, at some point in your past. And it is “through much tribulation” (Acts 14:22) that God is softening that spirit, trimming away at the barriers around the heart. So yes, life has to be hard.
…But only until you master your fractions, and convince them to be your allies (Ecclesiastes 4:12). The suffering of this life is meant to be used by your soul as a lever to pry your fractions back onto the path you choose. When you’re back on that path… life no longer needs to be hard.
A WILLING OX
Think about it; why do farmers use the neck of the beast to control it? Why not control the head? Because there is no good, simple way to control the heads of beasts. Likewise, since pain doesn’t hurt your soul, it’s not easy for God to correct it directly.
Since your soul doesn’t need a herd, it’s not easily led by one, so the herd controls your soul indirectly, by leading your spirit around. Because it’s hard to pin down the soul and afflict it or control it. So we don’t.
Instead we use spurs on their flanks (hurting the beast); whips on their back (hurting the beast); bits in their mouth (irritating the spirit); yokes on their necks (physically controlling the spirit). These push the head into going the direction we want… because you just can’t get a good grip on the head of an ox.
Now there is one tool that allows you to do it; a halter. But since a halter has no bit in the mouth, no sharp objects to amplify your commands, the ox has to want to follow you for it to work. No man can pull a half-ton ox with a halter if the ox doesn’t feel like going.
And so instead of leading, God pushes the stubborn ox; using whips and bits and yokes, He makes obedience less painful than disobedience. But only because the ox can’t be trusted to be led by the halter.
If the ox would just follow along because He said so, none of this would be necessary… not even the halter. The ox’s own head will turn his neck, his own head will drag his body along. All that will be required is a “still small voice” saying “this is the way, walk ye in it” (Isaiah 30:21).
Because you only need suffering until you can convince your fractions to follow you willingly, until you can ride your beast bareback and your spirit will follow your lead without reins. Until your lamb will follow your soul “whithersoever it leads”.
But until we reach that level of training, we need the whip to drive foolishness from us. We need the yoke, to guide us in the paths of righteousness. We need a bit in our spirit to turn us sharply when our soul needs to be turned in a hurry.
And knowing this, we should be thankful for the bit, the goad, and the yoke. But also look towards the day when we no longer need it. When we can carry, with Jesus, a light burden and an easy yoke (Matthew 11:29-30).
HEAL THYSELF
The unbroken spirits of my critics would sarcastically demand “so you’re saying you never suffer?” (Luke 4:23). Of course not. I learned many of these things the hard way, as most people do, and I still have plenty left to learn.
But I AM saying that I suffer far less now than I did a decade ago, or even a year ago. And I am determined to keep that curve pointed downhill in the future, because I prefer to learn from a word than from a toothache. So should you… and so can you.
The point of this lesson is easily expressed; if life is hard, it’s your fault. If you’re not happy, find out why; if you’re sitting on a thorn, pull it out. It’s that simple. No, I haven’t always done that. No, David didn’t always do that. But we always could have done that.
The Bible is full of the suffering of the righteous; doesn’t this prove that all I said is wrong… or at least, pointlessly idealistic? “Sure, NOAH could deliver himself from suffering, but you’re not Noah!” (Ezekiel 14:13-14). True – but Noah was a man, which proves it’s possible (James 5:17).
We all have different problems. We’ve all plumbed the depths of stupidity and depravity to a different degree. And so God gives us the trials we need and only those trials, to give us a chance to reach that city. After Abraham offered Isaac, God needed no more proof of his soul’s dominance over his fractions (Genesis 22:12).
Meanwhile, Paul needed a thorn in the flesh to keep him on the path even after he knew why it was there. But where does it say that John needed such a goad to keep him pointed in the right direction?
Then again, John was the disciple whom Jesus loved… no doubt, because John was easier to lead than, say, Peter (Mark 8:33, for instance).
Peter’s epistles are full of lessons about suffering because Peter had to learn them himself (1 Peter 2:20, 3:9-14). He said these particular things because they are things he learned the hard way, by doing their opposite – because this is not the way the younger Peter solved problems (compare with John 18:10-27).
So we’re gonna have to go through some stuff in this life. But that doesn’t make it normal. It doesn’t make it necessary. That’s like saying “you’re gonna get speeding tickets from time to time”. If you’re getting speeding tickets, you’re doing something wrong. Speeding tickets are easily avoidable with good choices, and so is suffering.
A peaceful life without suffering is the goal of everyone who regards the life of their beast (Proverbs 12:10). But not the highest goal – the highest goal is “a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:10). If that path leads through the valley of the shadow of death… so be it.
PERSECUTION
Paul tells us “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). That’s absolutely true. But what exactly does it say? That people will persecute, harass, hate you. Does that have to be a bad thing? Acts 5:41, Matthew 5:10-12.
David said “Many are the afflictions of the righteous” (Psalms 34:19). So, we should expect to suffer a lot as a Christian, right? Well, the same verse went on to say “…but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.”
Now if you knew that were true, if you truly believed that were true, then you wouldn’t be stressed in the middle of a crisis, would you? Remember when Paul was bitten by the snake – everyone around was sure that it was divine retribution. Paul barely seemed to notice (Acts 28:3-5). So was this really a trial?
When Paul “felt no harm”, was it really suffering? When you realize that every time someone calls you the antichrist, your stock in heaven goes up a little bit, is it really suffering? Yes, we will be persecuted in this world – how could we not be? John 16:33. But we choose what form it takes, and how much it costs us.
What about all the people like the ones in Hebrews 11, who were burned at the stake, sawn in half, and so on? Surely, they had no choice in their persecution. Perhaps not – but what about Daniel’s three friends, who were burnt alive… yet seemed not to notice (Daniel 3:17-28).
We may not be able to avoid being thrown into the lion’s den – all who will live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution, after all (Daniel 6:1-15). But our attitude about it, and our fractions’ faith in our choice and our soul’s faith in God, will determine whether or not the lions are hungry (Daniel 6:16-23).
Stephen was stoned, and didn’t seem to feel a thing (Acts 7:55-59). But look at the quality of his soul’s objectivity and judgment: Acts 7:60. This man had no reason to suffer in death, if his soul could render such a merciful and righteous judgment on his murderers, he clearly had nothing left to prove.
Yet this was a lesson it would take many more decades before Peter mastered (1 Peter 3:9). So yes, we will be persecuted, hated, annoyed for the truth. But whether that persecution translates into true pain and suffering, or mere inconvenience (moving to a new well, for example), is up to us.
And yes, we may be made poor, or sick, or weak; but whether that qualifies as true suffering or not depends on our attitude. When you’re poor, do you obey verse 9? Do you take it as an opportunity to learn the lesson in Philippians 4:11?
If not, then yes, it’s suffering. But if you are content with what you have, is it really suffering to be poor? 1 Timothy 6:6. And once you figure that out, there will no longer be a reason for you to be poor. After all, think about it; is it really your soul that is poor… or only your body? (Proverbs 13:7, James 2:5).
Life is rather like a horror movie. Terrifying and terrible things happen on screen. But those things don’t happen to you. In fact, they aren’t real at all. Until you begin to get sucked into the plot, and identify with the characters, they’re rather boring.
So if you’re gasping and flinching in response to the horror flick, step back and remind yourself that it’s all just rubber masks and diluted ketchup. If you truly believe that, it’s not possible to be scared by them.
Likewise, the bad things that happen in this world, even the absolute worst things, they happen only to your beast and your spirit. If you truly believe that this life is just ketchup and rubber, can it really be considered “suffering” and “tribulations” for your soul?
If you truly believed that “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked”, (Psalms 91:7-8)… then wouldn’t the end times be… kinda boring?
So yes, things happen to us. Whether they are bad things or not is usually up to us to determine – our reaction to them is what makes them bad or not. Does your soul get sucked into the movie that is your life? Or can it step back and realize it’s in the audience here – and make the right judgment?
Because if it’s a bad movie… maybe you should change the channel.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
We all choose our own yoke (Lamentations 1:14); we choose our suffering, and we choose our trials. If we would just do what we were supposed to do – which is not always as easy as it sounds, in our defense – then no afflictions are necessary. Guidance, yes; a word here or there of correction. But not suffering.
Yet we are human, and we’re going to insist on learning the hard way from time to time. If you want to minimize that, you need to learn to use each and every one of these trials to their fullest extent; to squeeze every lesson possible out of every mishap.
When things go wrong, ask yourself WHY? Which one of your fractions erred, and why? Ask yourself, if you could go back in time a day, what could you have done differently? Let’s say you bet on a losing horse. Then, next day, you ask yourself “where did I go wrong?”
Your spirit would say “we should have bet on a different horse!” Of course; because that horse lost, and since we now know that it lost, we should have bet on a different horse. Yet is that really the lesson to be learned in this situation?
With the benefit of hindsight – the strength of the spirit – no one would go back in time and make the same mistakes. But they would make the same mistake in a different way! Because the spirit answered the wrong question; it answered the question “what would I do differently, knowing what I know now?”
But that’s the wrong question. The question that needs answering is “what would I do differently, knowing what I knew then!”
The problem wasn’t that you picked the wrong horse; knowing what you knew then, you could not have reliably picked a winning horse. You could not have known which horse would lose. So that wasn’t the mistake;
The mistake was playing the game in the first place. Because no matter which horse you picked, the house ALWAYS was going to win. You were always going to lose, in the long run. So the only way to have avoided losing, knowing what you knew then, was not to bet at all!
When something bad happens, you need to ask yourself “what should I have done differently, knowing only what I knew then?” At first, the question seems absurd; because if you were limited to what you knew then, you would obviously make the same choice again; right?
I mean, you made a choice then based on what you knew and understood then, so of course you’d make the exact same choice in the exact same situation now, right?
Having only the knowledge you had then, yes. Having only the understanding you had then, yes. But having the wisdom you have now… you might make a different choice even though it’s BASED ON THE SAME FACTS!
None of us, given a chance to relive our teenage years, knowing what was to come, wouldn’t make drastic changes to our lives. And yet, what if you had to relive your teenage years, not knowing what was to come?
What if your memory was wiped of the facts of your future life, so you didn’t know what would happen; what if your spirit was wiped of the lessons you learned, stripped of the understanding of what happens when you do certain kinds of things…
What if your current soul were put into your teenage body with no memories, none of the understanding you’ve gained since?
What if your wisdom, your capacity to make better decisions based on the same evidence as your younger self, were the only thing about you that remained the same?
If an amnesiac can still remember how to ride a horse when he can’t remember his own name, is it not because his soul has retained the ability to manage the spirit and heart of a beast, even though he doesn’t know why or how?
If you were to suddenly be stricken with amnesia and find yourself in high school, would you really make all the same choices you made then? Would your life follow the exact same foolish path as it did before?
If not, then your soul has LEARNED something. Something separate from, larger than, and far more important than the memories and understanding of your heart and spirit. It has learned to judge more wisely, learned to make better decisions with the exact same information.
But let’s go one step further; what if you were stricken with amnesia and put in your mother’s womb, with life to live all over again.
Would that fetus eventually sin? If so, then your soul has not yet learned the lessons you need to learn. Because when that exact thing happened to the Word of God…
When His soul was stripped of every experience, every life lesson, everything that you might have thought made Him, well, Him… His soul retained the one thing that all of us are striving to acquire:
The wisdom to judge righteous judgment.