Felix Bravo’s Weblog

Imagine this if you will: The man was full of wrath. He was not just plain angry; he was fuming mad.  He had been wallowing in the pond of his displeasure for weeks on end. What caused it? A group of people—his own brethren at church— did not heed his advice or belittled his suggestions. That was all. That set him off to perform this vengeful act— an act that could show them how displeased he was! What was it?  Withhold from this people the privilege of using the church songbooks. Let them find their own.  They deserve no help from him.

You would not believe it if you just heard it, not until you saw it with your own eyes. You would not mind it if was just the church janitor, or the brother of the church janitor.

You would not mind either if the man was just a little boy having tantrums. But you would mind if it was a fifty-year old administrator, holder of education and Bible degrees….

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Yesterday, today and tomorrow are just like other days the Lord has made.  As usual we, like other creatures of God, are into a game of advertising. That game is played by us and by them like any ordinary game, although its intent and purpose are beyond the ordinary. It is a game we and they don’t always play too well. We are the billboards, we are the ads and the ad carriers, God is the one advertised, but as in many cases the one advertised is being overshadowed by the billboards.

Why is that so, one may ask. Well, some participants in this advertising game are in a sense mediocrity a outrance. They are not creative, their special effects are lousy, and the impact they create on those who are watching, to say the least, leaves much to be desired. Simply stated, they just don’t measure up. The ones among them who have played it so bad are remembered only for the embarrassment they have created. Their failings are their biography.

It is a bit like the way our ordinary lives work through all the days of the year.

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Let’s say someone considers himself not a run-of-the-mill Christian.  He’s been trying to be good, and he’s been trying to do good. If Christianity means filling up the forms and leaving no boxes unticked, he’s done a superb job in this area.

Then, you ask, in spite of all these, why do good people like him still suffer?

Good people.  There is a sense in which we may misunderstand the term “good.”  The Bible says no one’s good but God (Matthew 19:17).  If a man is said to be “good,” he is such only according to the world’s standards.  But back to the question: Why do you, or I, suffer?

First, It is because the Lord wants me to exercise my freedom to bear or not to bear. That is not an off-the-cuff answer.

The Son of God, for instance, was free to choose, but He chose Calvary and its cross.  And in choosing, He bore it all—the pain, and the humiliation of having to undergo that pain at the hands of the people He had created, and the painful thought of dying at the hands of those whom He had given life. Pause here for a while and think… Think of this as you are being shamed and disrespected by the very child who owed you her life…Do you see the analogy?

So, to suffer is your choice. In having to suffer you must feel free. Not even God is going to take that freedom away from you.

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I am indoors this morning pounding at the slowness of my PC’s keyboard while the world around me is wrapped in the gust of coolness brought by the rains that began at two and whose end is nowhere in sight. I hate to open my door, for beyond that I know lies the inescapable responsibility to clean up the languishing mess of shopworn leaves, rotten and wet, thrown at my yard by the winds of last night. I am supposed to finish this piece whose deadline has been set by me.  At the craft I have chosen, I am my own boss. And even though it has been my wish and desire to fulfill my boss’ wish and desire, I still have failed to relate to my own time frame. Maybe a turtle could beat me at the speed at which I am writing.

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