Mourning Brings Comfort
In Jesus’ famous sermon He mentions eight things not usually associated with happiness. Most of them are considered painful and all of them are difficult to achieve. The first item on the list is “Poor in Spirit” and the second is “Mourning,” which is to say, it starts off badly and gets worse. Poor in Spirit we dealt with in the last post so we’ll talk about mourning now.
Remember that the common thread through the first section of this sermon is happiness and it seems very out of place. The eight things mentioned are thought to be anti-happy. We think happy people are those who avoid them and Jesus is suggesting something completely different.
The truth is every person experiences every item on the list and we all know the negative side of these experiences. Jesus is suggesting they can lead to a positive outcome. Read more
Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People
It’s an age old problem. It happens in every generation. Good people die before their time, sometimes in horrible ways, or are disabled by unfair injuries or are crippled by unexpected financial loss…and we really get upset about this! Our sense of justice is offended.
When bad things happen to people we perceive as good, especially children, we become indignant. Why doesn’t God stop all the unnecessary pain and suffering? Why should any child be afflicted with disease, neglect or abuse? Why should any good person at any age endure painful experiences?
And the fact that God created the world in the blink of an eye begs the question. With all that power, why doesn’t He protect innocent people from bad things and prove to everyone how benevolent He can be? To any person who hasn’t become emotionally callous this is a fair and reasonable question but is it really an emotional issue? We can’t reasonably consider this question without asking several more first. For example… Read more
Tim Pepper - Beautiful Frustration