God Does Not Will Sin or Evil

It’s our human nature to want to be right, understood, heard, or correct. In most of our conversations or arguments, we are constantly preparing responses in our heads, pointing out flaws in the other person’s thinking, gearing up our defenses, and doing whatever we can to come out on the “right” side. A man may argue with his wife in an attempt to be right, but if it ends with her in tears and even greater distance between the two, then being right didn’t matter at all. Our desire to be correct comes from a place of pride, rather than compassion. When we switch our focus from being correct to being compassionate, it changes the way we approach conversations. Instead of speaking the truth out of anger, bitterness, resentment, or pride we speak out of love and compassion. It’s easy to speak out of anger and bitterness because we find ourselves saying the words that have been stirring in our minds for some time. It’s a lot more difficult to speak from a heart of love and compassion for the other person. To speak in compassion is to rely on the God of compassion, rather than our own strength or wisdom. Pride cares only for itself, but compassion cares for the other person. The two cannot coexist, so we will always choose one when we enter into conversations with our brothers and sisters. Jesus, on the other hand, always chose compassion. He spoke hard truth, but he did it out of deep love for his people and trust in God that the truth would ultimately be transformative. We must ask ourselves whether we can have that same trust in God when we choose to be compassionate over being correct when offering truth. Reflection/Discussion Question: What is most difficult about choosing to be compassionate over being correct?

Many times what makes suffering so difficult isn’t the suffering itself, but the emotional turmoil that accompanies it. Suffering brings anxiety, despair, and anger, and these emotions often lead us to do things we never thought we would do. Temptations become more intense and our self-control crumbles under the weight of it all.  Paul is writing this letter to prepare us for when this kind of suffering comes. Though we try to avoid suffering completely, Paul makes us face the reality that suffering will come—especially when we are followers of Jesus. With suffering will come emotional exhaustion, but we don’t have to be controlled by our emotions. Despite what we may have been taught, emotions aren’t bad to experience. We can acknowledge our emotions in the midst of our suffering, but we don’t want to be controlled by them. Paul writes this letter to point us back to the truth of who God is, so truth can take the driver’s seat in times of suffering. Our suffering is not surprising to God. Our emotions are not foreign to him, either. Jesus experienced the full range of human emotions without sinning. He was able to do this by clinging to the God of comfort. We have the same access to God and to the truth that our soul craves when we are being swept away by a current of sin and thrown around by waves of emotion. Reflection/Discussion Question: What are some truths about God to remind yourself of when you are emotionally exhausted?