JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
We are not programmed by our Creator for suffering. It doesn't sit well with us because it wasn't supposed to happen.....suffering and death are foreign to our sensibilities. So why are we suffering and why do we die? What could make death preferable to living? Can you imagine a reason why a loving God would allow it?
Finding out the reasons for our present situation and the future solutions that God is going to bring very soon now, will help us limp to the finish line with his support. (Prov 27:11)
No one wants to live in anguish or with protracted illness, (mental or physical,) but that is our lot at present whilst God deals with a very powerful adversary. This enemy's challenges to God's sovereign right to rule his creation had to be used as an object lesson so that free will could be retained by God's intelligent creatures for all time to come. The precedents set by the way God has allowed his adversary relatively free reign in his persistent challenges, will stay with creation forever. (Think about Job) No rebel will ever be able to challenge God's rightful sovereignty ever again. Job's suffering is Biblical legend. His case is pictorial of our own....his outcome is too. (Job 42:10-17)
Its a big universe and I believe that God has equally big plans for it. Settling the 'teething problems' at the beginning is a good way to have the rest proceed on into eternity without any more interruptions.
Its a bit like a parent allowing a child to undergo very painful surgery to correct a physical defect. The suffering was worth it for the permanent restoration of health. The outcome was worth the pain.
When you consider that man is designed to live forever, right here on earth, and that most of us only live 70 or 80 years.....our whole life is a mere blip on the radar compared to eternity. God does not expect us to suffer for more than our short lifetime with the promise of a wonderful life to come...the one he purposed for us in the beginning....unending life in paradise.
It appeals to many among us Matthew.....but death is not what God wants for us. He wants us to live the life he purposed at the beginning, and giving his children free will was his gift to them...it is one of the ways he made us in his image. The abuse of free will will is at issue here. If we don't learn the lesson, nothing we ever do will succeed. When we exercise our free will to the detriment of someone else...we have abused it. Look at all the suffering that wicked humans are heaping upon others....it is all abuse of their free will. Only those who learn the lesson and obey their Father will inherit the life he promised.
The devil is a child of God too and he was the first rebel. He influenced other angels to rebel. This lesson is taught in their timeframe, not that of humans. For us it seems to be taking forever, but because 'a thousand of our years is just like a day' to God, for us it is hard to endure, but the end will justify the means. We are living in the time of the end.....soon now it will all come to its conclusion.
The life we long for is not far away.
