Suffering Part 3
Miracles Happen
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 9,977
Suffering Part 3
Acceptance - Part 1
Kindness of God - Part 2
Suffering - Part 3
Some humorist once said, "Just because we have the right to the pursuit of happiness is no sign we'll ever catch up to it." Sometimes it almost seems that God doesn't want us to be happy here on earth, that He demands misery and suffering in this life as the price of happiness in the next. The Puritans believed this, but don't you believe it! God wants us to be happy right here on earth, and even points out the way. Sometimes, however, we refuse to look where He is pointing.
The trouble is that most of us think happiness consists in the fulfillment of our wants and desires, or at the very least in freedom from pain and suffering. Actually, it consists in the serenity that comes from conforming our own will to the Will of God. We achieve happiness by forcing ourselves to accept what God wants for us.
It's obvious that such a course would make for happiness in the next life, but it's hard to see how it would make us happy in this life. That's because we're convinced that happiness lies in getting what we want-satisfying our instinctive appetites and desires-all of which is the exact opposite of the truth. Actually, even if we could satisfy our every desire, we would not be happy. Self-gratification, far from making us happy, makes us miserable, as we learned long ago from the tale of King Midas and the Golden Touch. If you have been making the universal mistake of trying to appease the drive of your self-will, stop it! Stop catering to it, and start controlling it.
"Easier said than done!"
No, it's not too difficult when you know how. God has provided us with the perfect means to eliminate self-will and free ourselves from the slavery of our insatiable desires. It is suffering-the perfect tool to cut us down to proper size. Instead of going the limit to dodge pain, we had better start using it. Pain is the only instument sharp enough to prune away the excesses of our wayward will and to fashion it into a reasonable facsimile of God's Will; which is to say into the shape of a cross.
Very few people carry a cross of heroic proportions, since God makes each one to measure, and there are very few heroes. More usually it consists of daily annoyances and petty frustrations, disappointments, loneliness and recurring disillusionment with everybody, ourselves included. You might term it a combination of the bodily aches, spiritual twinges, and mental hotfoots that go to make up everyday living. The Way of the Cross may be hard, but it remains the only road to happiness, serenity, and peace in this life, on this earth. And at its end there awaits you happiness without measure, without limit, without end.
You are reading from Acceptance by Vincent P Collins
Part 4 Contentment continues
Kindness of God - Part 2
Suffering - Part 3
Some humorist once said, "Just because we have the right to the pursuit of happiness is no sign we'll ever catch up to it." Sometimes it almost seems that God doesn't want us to be happy here on earth, that He demands misery and suffering in this life as the price of happiness in the next. The Puritans believed this, but don't you believe it! God wants us to be happy right here on earth, and even points out the way. Sometimes, however, we refuse to look where He is pointing.
The trouble is that most of us think happiness consists in the fulfillment of our wants and desires, or at the very least in freedom from pain and suffering. Actually, it consists in the serenity that comes from conforming our own will to the Will of God. We achieve happiness by forcing ourselves to accept what God wants for us.
It's obvious that such a course would make for happiness in the next life, but it's hard to see how it would make us happy in this life. That's because we're convinced that happiness lies in getting what we want-satisfying our instinctive appetites and desires-all of which is the exact opposite of the truth. Actually, even if we could satisfy our every desire, we would not be happy. Self-gratification, far from making us happy, makes us miserable, as we learned long ago from the tale of King Midas and the Golden Touch. If you have been making the universal mistake of trying to appease the drive of your self-will, stop it! Stop catering to it, and start controlling it.
"Easier said than done!"
No, it's not too difficult when you know how. God has provided us with the perfect means to eliminate self-will and free ourselves from the slavery of our insatiable desires. It is suffering-the perfect tool to cut us down to proper size. Instead of going the limit to dodge pain, we had better start using it. Pain is the only instument sharp enough to prune away the excesses of our wayward will and to fashion it into a reasonable facsimile of God's Will; which is to say into the shape of a cross.
Very few people carry a cross of heroic proportions, since God makes each one to measure, and there are very few heroes. More usually it consists of daily annoyances and petty frustrations, disappointments, loneliness and recurring disillusionment with everybody, ourselves included. You might term it a combination of the bodily aches, spiritual twinges, and mental hotfoots that go to make up everyday living. The Way of the Cross may be hard, but it remains the only road to happiness, serenity, and peace in this life, on this earth. And at its end there awaits you happiness without measure, without limit, without end.
You are reading from Acceptance by Vincent P Collins
Part 4 Contentment continues
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
