Suffering

Suffering sucks. I'm not going to lie. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something. But there is a purpose to it. How can one know who he is until a certain amount of pressure has been faced? If I'm always nice to everyone because everyone is always nice to me, am I a nice person? Maybe, but it's impossible to tell. Struggling is where your true self comes out.

Another part of this puzzle is patience. Patience is an important Christ-like attribute, but one must be have something to be patient over in order to get it. As my dad always said, "Be careful praying for patience, God might just decide to give you some." This life is supposed to be a time of learning, and sometimes God gives you some struggle so you can learn how to live in tough times. Sometimes it is just the free will of others, but often it is from God.

Which brings me to my next point - making others suffer is a horrible, horrible thing. It's like a rowboat. Sure you can row it over to a drowning sinner, and then use the oar to beat him into the water, but that's not really what we should be doing... Helping, not "helping" via patience giving, is our real goal here. God loves all and helps all, even those that hate him, and that should be our goal too.