Suffering

1Samuel 20:1

“Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to kill me?”

I once knew a man who devoted his life to the service of God.  He gave selflessly and sacrificially and he loved unconditionally.  Yet he suffered.  And I thought, at the time (and still do), that he did not deserve his suffering.  

David, chosen by God to be the next King of Israel, felt persecuted, unjustly. He had served his King, he had won victories over the King’s enemies, he had brought honor to Israel, yet King Saul was trying to kill him.

Sometimes our sufferings make no sense.  Good and innocent people suffer and die while the not so innocent prosper.

David overcame his suffering and became a great king.  In his reign as king, his sufferings seemed always in the back of his mind.  They shaped and molded his reign. 

Our sufferings make us the people that we are.  They will either make us or break us; strengthen our faith or cause us to question it or lose it.

The man I knew loved until his last breath.

God’s love is like that.  

May the love of Christ be with you,

Rev. Eric Lanier (Retired)