Thoughts for another day

Feb. 15, 2008

Today's verse: 1 Peter 2:19. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. (NRSV)
(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

A question. Pls. answer honestly to yourself. Have you ever tried to do something for God? Like, just for His sake skipped a meal or abstained from something you desire greatly…you know what I am talking about. I’m sure sometime you must have. That’s great. Now, Peter is talking about even I find pretty difficult (or is it, impossible) to do. That is to suffer for the sake of God or if I may interpret in another way, suffer, keeping in mind that God knows you’re suffering and still allows it.

Peter says it is a great Grace to do it. I have many times encountered situations of difficulty that someone has created for me and I am forced to endure. What to do at such a time? To continue in that environment (let’s say a job where a colleague has been successful in making life difficult for me), however painful it is, or however insulted I feel, is difficult. But I need to realise that the Grace of God flowing toward me is directly dependent on how much I have reconciled to the situation and taken it as something, God has put in my path for my own good, even while considering that He has the power to take the situation away.

Though I would be guilty of complaining and murmuring in such situations, I yet know that if I take the situation to God and reconcile with it, His Grace flows abundantly. It’s just that our faith in God is so shallow and our consciousness of Him so low that we do not abide by what He asks us to do. That’s how life becomes difficult and our miseries never end.

Today onwards I pray by His Grace to try and suffer even in an unjust situation and leave it to Him. I remember that God is with the just and He will some day, wreck vengeance on those I leave Him to avenge. And I am sure that in that situation of difficulty, the trial will be mere a stepping stone teaching me how to leap better.