Yesterday I had a brief conversation with a friend.  Her husband is wasting away, a victim of dibilitating depression.  Again I saw that unspoken question in her eyes: Why?  I have seen this question in the eyes of many of my friends and in others.  Abandonment. Divorce.  Wayward children. Chronic illness.  The impact of criminal sins on themselves and their families.  The list of suffering goes on displaying the creative nature endowed to man, merged with the corruption of the fall into sin.   It's product is a thousand twisted ways to hurt others in a world where all of our bodies are slowly wasting away.  Why?  Why does God allow parents to lose a child?  Why doesn't He stop the abuse?  Why does He seem to restrain Himself in all His limitless power against all that violates His glorious holiness?  As I have pondered the result of suffering, I come back to part of the answer--its results.

    Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one
    loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all
    that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of
    the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is
    of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it;
    but he who does the will of God abides for ever.  (1 John 2:15-17)

In Genesis, Adam made a choice for all of us.  He chose to love himself more than God, and to love all the world had to offer more than love God's best plan.  I have not experienced the worst of suffering, but in the last decade I have almost died, lost both my parents, had my husband walk out on me (and all the loss that brings), and battled moderate depression and anxiety.  In all of these events, what I have discovered is that they forced me to my knees.  As I faced the fruit of what the world has to offer, it was bitter, and I found I didn't want it the way I thought I did.  I wish I could say my grip on the world is broken, but sadly, it isn't yet.  However instead of clinging to the things of the world now with both hands, I find myself only holding on by one, and I am convinced that I will not let go of what the other hand has.  It's like the scene in so many movies where the guy has gone over the cliff, and is being held by the hero with one hand, and all he has to do is let go of that thing weighing him down and preventing him from being fully pulled up. (Usually that weight is the bad guy . . . not sure whom the bad guy is that I'm clinging to: the old me or the enemy?) In my life, the only thing keeping me from living a life filled with all the Father has planned is my reticence to let go of all the other things I love.  And to me, that is a part of the reason for suffering.  The more it hurts, the more willing I am to let go.

I have heard the same thing verbalized as I have talked to many others who are carrying their cross and suffering as Jesus suffered.  They are letting go of all the other things in the world, as they find hope and peace only in God. As my friend and I talked yesterday, we both shared of our longing for heaven.  I can still remember not having that longing, but instead hoping the Lord would tarry in His return so I could enjoy life.  Ha!  No enjoyment there.  Come soon Lord!  I can also look back on my life and see things I thought I could not live happily without--financial security, TV, even family--and I dicover in myself I don't even long for those things back. (OK, there is some longing for family, but God is slowly getting it through my thick head that the family bonds He offers are more true than anything I had the illusion of having with my earthly family.)  As I consider all I have let go of, and the way it was bringing death into my life, I am grateful for the life that God has brought as I have learned to let go.  And I search for the next thing I need to let go of so that I can fall more in love with Him.