{"id":1882,"date":"2007-12-09T13:22:16","date_gmt":"2007-12-09T02:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/?p=1882"},"modified":"2021-06-16T22:53:54","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T12:53:54","slug":"living-in-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/living-in-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Living in Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\ud83d\ude42 In response to somebody&#8217;s remark about a bad &amp; a good life, here what some points i managed to think through. You may agree\/disagree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The reality of suffering.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s one of the most profound and debated topic in all circles. How can a good God allow suffering? Or will God make people suffer? If God in control, why did He allow suffering (the natural disasters, poverties, hungers, diseases, etc)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s 3 ways at least for me to answer that honestly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1. Suffering is the <strong>consequences of this fallen world<\/strong>. As fallen world (bcs of man&#8217;s sins), it&#8217;s natural to expect disease &amp; disasters. Hence it&#8217;s expected thing. And consequences of man&#8217;s sins too&#8230;.that we see crimes, poverties, and hungers &#8230;. for the selfishness of the rich some and the jealousies of the poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And to this aspect, I give thanks to God who promises of a new world. The world he will create when Jesus comes again. The new world where there will be no more disease, death, disaster, and tears. A perfect world<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2. God not only allows suffering as part of human&#8217;s life. But <strong>He sticks to the rule<\/strong>, and he played this &#8216;game&#8217; fair. There&#8217;s no better description than this fairness. That Jesus lived and experienced sufferings more than most of us ever experience. He was beaten, stripped, nailed, hanged on the cross, pierced&#8230;..and those happened as results of people&#8217;s conspiracies &amp; betrayals. God allows suffering, and he tasted it to the fullest. He didn&#8217;t skip \/ escape it &#8230;..<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>3. Last, the knowledge that God knows our sufferings, and He cares. I think that&#8217;s the last defence i can put up, when all my mind and rationalization has far gone. The fact that <strong>God knows <\/strong>(even when a bird falls or a hair drop, God knows) and <strong>God cares <\/strong>(when Saul persecuted Christians&#8230;.Jesus confronted him as he&#8217;s actually persecuting Jesus himself).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When i cannot make sense of suffering, the comforting this is that God knows, and He cares (as the book of Job fully answers that about suffering on good people) that God&#8217;s wisdom is higher than ours and He knows what He&#8217;s doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So <em>in the face of sufferings<\/em>, a Christian view of life should not be pessimistic &#8230;. and it should not be cursing &amp; swearing to God. For all this will one day gone, and God cares even in the midst of suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And <em>when good things happen<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1. A people that <strong>giving thanks &amp; praise to God<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2. A people that acknowledge <strong>God as the giver <\/strong>of all good things<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That may in bad times or good times &#8230;. our lives give glory to God<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ud83d\ude42 In response to somebody&#8217;s remark about a bad &amp; a good life, here what some points i managed to think through. You may agree\/disagree. The reality of suffering. It&#8217;s one of the most profound and debated topic in all &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/living-in-reality\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,72],"tags":[375,178,275,303,310,332],"class_list":["post-1882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focus","category-wisdom","tag-answering","tag-gods-glory","tag-reality","tag-suffering","tag-thots","tag-world"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1147,"url":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/life-is-unfair-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1882,"position":0},"title":"Life is unfair (2)","author":"clay","date":"February 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I woke up in the middle of nite, and cried. Why there's suffering? Why good people suffer? Why does God allow good people to suffer? It's not theological question, but it's emotional response Why there's a need for such intense suffering? And if it's necessary, what's the point for good\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sorry&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sorry","link":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/category\/emotion\/sorry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1401,"url":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/redemptive-grace\/","url_meta":{"origin":1882,"position":1},"title":"Redemptive Grace","author":"clay","date":"April 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The question puzzles me, \"why did God punish Eve and all women with so much pain in child-bearing? And why did God punish Adam and all men with much pain in working to earn a living?\" Both are the life-line of mankind existence, and the closest which we instinctively will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;God's Love&quot;","block_context":{"text":"God's Love","link":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/category\/gods-love\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24,"url":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/never-out-of-gods-loving-hands\/","url_meta":{"origin":1882,"position":2},"title":"Never out of God&#8217;s loving hands","author":"clay","date":"February 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Last nite was bit strange...couldn't fall asleep despite my dizziness & usual easyly fallen asleep once i hit my pillow. So i woke up and spent some times with the Lord... At first, i asked Him things that troubled me about a book i was reading. I don't know how...later\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;God's Love&quot;","block_context":{"text":"God's Love","link":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/category\/gods-love\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1149,"url":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/life-is-unfair-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":1882,"position":3},"title":"Life is unfair (3)","author":"clay","date":"February 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Perhaps this's my last entry on this subject I don't know how to explain or put it in a clear and sober way... However the accounts of 3 people I read lately have opened my eyes. One is a man who's struck\u00a0by cancer and was dying of the disease, severely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Love&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Love","link":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/category\/virtues\/love\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":925,"url":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/i-am-thankful-for-jesus\/","url_meta":{"origin":1882,"position":4},"title":"I am thankful for Jesus","author":"clay","date":"January 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"For the last few nights, i have been watching my girl crying in pain when she's passing motion. Many times i pleaded with the Lord for mercy. I couldn't take it to see my girl in such pain (when she cried till no more tears). And God reminded me, that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Thankful&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Thankful","link":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/category\/emotion\/thankful\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":923,"url":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/worship-in-the-odd-timing\/","url_meta":{"origin":1882,"position":5},"title":"Worship in the Odd timing","author":"clay","date":"January 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"For the last 4 nites probably, I have been sleeping around 2am. Because our newborn girl started to wake up at 11pm. And she will slowly empty her bowel with little drops (followed by a lot of pains & cries because the gas in her stomach pushing the intestines), till\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Thankful&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Thankful","link":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/category\/emotion\/thankful\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1883,"href":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions\/1883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potterdreams.com\/clay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}