DO YOU DARE QUESTION DESTINY?

I would like to believe that we were all made with a purpose.

That somehow... God knew what he was doing when he pulled out his little vile labeled 'drama', only to commence his liberal use of such an ingredient... James Barber style.

Paul said that we should rejoice in our sufferings. I'm pretty sure he meant that it was through our suffering that we built dependence on him (who is within us). Yet, I have a feeling that there's something more to it. Let me 'read out' of such a passage (as theologians would say) and create some healthy speculation on the topic.

Suffering. What is it? I would define suffering as any physical,psychological, emotional, and/or spiritual distress that is caused by a variety of tangible and untangible objects/processes/situations. Let's go deeper into the definition and try to figure an anti-thesis to such a postulation. Would joy reflect an EXACTLY opposing response or definition to suffering? No... a situation that produces joy would more be in line with suffering. So suffering can be described as a situation... regardless of a macro (societal) or micro (individualistic) interpretation of that particular situation in question.

So back to Paul...

Paul pronounces that suffering should be a positive within our lives... not a negative. I would take this further and suggest that the consequences of the experiences of suffering within that 'condition' of the situation that produced such suffering... is what produces this positive... and not the initial emotive response of suffering.

However, I get a sense of an 'organic' nature to the type of suffering Paul is referring to. This suffering is a deep and heavily personalized type of suffering that cannot be easily negated into the simplistic understandings of what we consider to be... whatever situation we may consider to be worthy to produce a consequence of suffering defined above. Paul's suffering was deeply personal. His suffering was associated with the one thing that could create such deeply rooted heartache and sorrow... God.

Through Paul's suffering... I am reminded of the nature of man... or what I will appeal to as being the 'nature of man' (or whatever else you may define it as). No matter what plateau we may reach... and no matter how high we may climb. No height is great enough to escape the basic human emotions and responses that we programmed within us... by him, who created us.

Yes... we learn something from our suffering. But may I be so bold to say that sometimes... we truly don't want to learn. Sometimes... we want to be left alone in our deep set comfort of simply not seeing the true reality that we ourselves have taken part in constructing. A reality that seeks to... brick by brick... construct a wall that will finally separate our futile human existence from him who was never even close to finishing us when we exited our mother's womb.

We were never completed... and we will never be truly complete if we keep hiding the pieces of ourselves that we love the most from him... pieces of ourselves that desparately need his knowing hands.

We grasp... we pull... and we turn round and round... attempting to never let him in... yearning to retain some illusion of normacy within this world that we desparately want to be a part of.

Knowing all too well that the words we speak with all our hearts... are but a fleeting speck of clay that fly into the face of the potter... a speck he wipes from his face with a cloth that finds moisture from the tears he had shed for his lost.

We hope to find our destiny. But we really hope to mold it for ourselves.

We all want different things... but in the end... we really want the same, little things.




Suffer

... not because you know it's good.

But because...

... you know no other way.