Articles

Sometimes we can be in the middle of very sad times in our lives. There’s nothing wrong with being sad when bad things happen, especially when they’re not our fault.

During these times, God is trying to draw even closer to us. He wants us to know that the bad things are temporary, but that they’re inevitable, they can’t be avoided.

It’s all because we have free will. Because we have this freedom, we are free to do either good or bad, right or wrong. Which means this life is going to be full of both good things and bad things.

This freedom is necessary. Without it, the words “I love you” would be meaningless. And ultimately, this life is a test of who will love. We are made for love, because God is love, and God made us.

This means suffering is ultimately tied to this life. The only way God could take it away is to remove our freedom, but that’s the whole point of this life, to test who will use their freedom for good, and who will use it for evil.

Only after this life, when everyone has either passed or failed this test, will God finally separate the good from the bad, those who love from those who hate. But in the meantime, bad things are going to happen.

But God doesn’t leave us alone in this pain, in these bad times. God does stop some of it from happening. He prevents some of it. And he takes away some of it. But he can’t take all of it away, or he’d have to take away our freedom too.

But even though he can’t stop all of the bad things from happening, he doesn’t leave us alone in all of it.

His answer was to join us in our pain. To suffer with us. That was his solution. That’s how he helped us, and how he showed his love for us.

It’s as if God said, “I can’t take this pain away from you. But I can share it with you. Even though I’m innocent and have done nothing wrong, I will feel this pain with you, so that you aren’t feeling it alone.”

So the Son of God became Man, Jesus Christ. And he was born in suffering. From being born in the dirty stable of animals on a freezing December night, all the way to the Crucifixion, Jesus suffered throughout his whole human life on earth.

God is trying to show us just how Good he is! So that we can make the right choice: to do good, even when bad things are happening, knowing that we aren’t alone, because Jesus also chose to do only good, even though everything bad happened to him.

For we have not a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are; yet, without sin. [Letter to the Hebrews.]

Read the Letter to the Hebrews and you will thoroughly see that Jesus chose to join us in our misery and pain, in our suffering and sadness. It was a response of his love towards us, of his mercy towards his.

And our response should be to love him in return. We can’t love him as much as he loves us, because he loves infinitely. But he’s okay with that. He praised the woman who put into the treasury two copper coins—her whole living.

If we choose to not sin while bad things are happening to us, then we are proving that we love Jesus. And that’s the biggest, best, and most important thing we can ever do. He will make us happy forever in the next life, in return for this. But in the meantime, we must be patient while this life, this test to see who deserves to be happy with Jesus forever, finishes its course.