I Choose To Suffer Without Bitterness Religion Essay

Suffering was promised to us. It ‘s portion of what we have to travel through. Jesus tells us in the blessednesss in the Gospel of Mathew 5:4 “ Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted ” NIV.

Prophet Jeremiah ‘s brush with his wrongdoers

Prophet Jeremiah plaints to Yahweh about what he is traveling through in the custodies of those he had rescued from God ‘s choler. He is profoundly defeated and can non halt but inquiries God “ Should good be repaid with immorality? Yet they have dug a cavity for me. Remember that I stood before you and talk on their behalf to turn your wrath off from them ” Jeremiah 18:20 ( NIV ) . Is n’t that merely the manner it feels in our humanity? We try to make something good for other people, and at the terminal of it we suffer. Garth Brooks one time said ; some of God ‘s greatest gifts are unreciprocated supplications.

One would believe that if we were truly traveling to seek to make some religious good for them they should appreciate. Jeremiah stood on their behalf to turn away God ‘s wrath. It is exactly by his agony that Jeremiah became a great saint. It was in enduring that he was really able to stand before God on behalf of the people to turn away the wrath of God from them. One wise adult male said Faith makes things possible, non easy.

The interesting thing about Jeremiah ‘s instance is that the really people that he was praying for made him endure. They dug a cavity and threw him in it, they tarred him and put him in stocks, and they tossed him into gaol. They did one thing after the following to hapless Jeremiah. As the expression goes ; do n’t confound God ‘s forbearance with his concluding response. God kept directing him right back, stating “ Now pray for these people. Be sort to them and name them to holiness. Name them to transition. ”

Comparison with Jesus Suffering and decease

We see Our Lord stating us the exact same thing in the Gospel of Mathew 20:18 “ He ‘s traveling to hold to travel to Jerusalem, He ‘s traveling to be turned over to the main priests and Scribes, and they will reprobate Him to decease and turn Him over to the Gentiles. They will do athletics of Him ; they will crucify Him, all these thingsaˆ¦ ” And so the form is traveling to be the same for us.

The basic thing is that everyone wants felicity, no 1 wants enduring. And happiness chiefly comes from our ain attitude, instead than from external factors. If your ain mental attitude is right, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy.

– Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

We are called to endure like Jesus

If we are traveling to pray for person, for their transition, and we ‘re traveling to seek to make good for them, we ‘re traveling to endure. That is non to propose that we are being repaid with immorality. That is what it will experience like on the interior. “ If I ‘m making something good, why do I have to endure? ”

“ Agony is evil ” , we think. But it is non. When we look at the rood, we see that enduring is an act of love if it is offered to God and united to the Lord.

If all we do is endure and we do nil with it, it ‘s no better than an animate being that is enduring. What good is a Canis familiaris that is enduring? What good does that enduring make? None.

But human agony is wholly different because we can accept it and offer it to the Lord in brotherhood with Our Lord ‘s agony. Then it has infinite value. It becomes the really agony of Jesus Christ.

Truth has non particular clip of its ain. Its hr is now-always and so so most genuinely when it seems unsuitable to existent fortunes. Martin Luther King

So the Lord says, “ If you want to be great in the eyes of God, you must function the demands of the remainder. ” It ‘s non doing your illustriousness felt. It ‘s non being noticed and recognized. Rather, it is in service, it is in being low. The greatest service that we can supply for others is to pray for them and to endure for them. When we suffer like Jeremiah, we ‘re traveling to state, “ Why does good hold to be repaid by immorality? ” But as we suffer, we will be tempered and we will turn in sanctity. Then we will understand, experientially, the value, the self-respect, and the importance of enduring. We will kick no longer.

“ If you are distressed by anything external, the hurting is non due to the thing itself, but to your estimation of it ; and this you have the power to revoke at any minute. ” Marcus Aurelius

That ‘s why all the saints, when they get to a certain point, get down to pray for enduring. They do n’t eschew it any longer. They do n’t kick about it any longer. They pray for it. We would look at them and state, “ They need a head-shrinker ” . They recognize that their agony brings about the transition of others. It makes them holy and unites them to Jesus Christ in His agony.

God is naming us to accept suffer as the prophesier did. That is non evil, but merely the antonym: it is the greatest good. It is that which will do us saints. It will do us holy. It translates into infinity where we will be great saints and have a higher topographic point in Heaven to love and laud God for all infinity.

The lone manner to make that is through supplication and agony. So it is non an immorality to be shunned, but it is a gift which the Lord holds out to us. One that we should be eager to accept and to unify with His agony, the gift He offered to us. And in that manner to go one with Jesus Christ.

Political and civil sufferer

The undermentioned are people who agreed to endure for the interest of their people. They wanted truth and justness. They wanted their people to bask freedom. They stood for what they termed as “ the best for their people ”

Mahatma Gandhi of India fought for political independency through non force agencies.

Abraham Lincoln of America fought for democracy and liberated the Americans from British colonialism. He was one time quoted expression ;

“ Let every American, every lover of autonomy, every good wisher to his descendants, swear by the blood of the Revolution, ne’er to go against in the least peculiar, the Torahs of the state ; and ne’er to digest their misdemeanor by others. ”

— January 27, 1838 – Address Before the Young Men ‘s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois

Nelson Mandela of South Africa was in prison for 27years where he suffered and did non give in, contending apartheid system which oppressed the black people for over 500 old ages. At last he was released and became the first president of free South Africa. Today the universe celebrates him as an icon of freedom, justness and equality of all people irrespective of race, creed or political persuasion. Some of his quotation marks ;

“ It is said that no-one truly knows a state until one has been inside its gaols. A state should non be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest 1s, ”

“ When the H2O starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat. ”

Martin Luther King Jnr of America – he lead the civil rights motions inquiring for equality of all races in USA. He was shot and died when he was giving a talk entitled ; “ I have a dream ” he had a dream where he saw all Americans will see each other before God and before the jurisprudence. His dream has been realized in a bigger manner in the election of Barack Obama

He said “ Life ‘s most relentless and pressing inquiry is, ‘What are you making for others? ‘ ”

Jomo Kenyatta ( and the other Kapenguria 6 ) of Kenya were jailed for 7 old ages. He told the British colonialist the ground for Kenya ‘s to resistance to the European colonialisation is to acquire political freedom and the right to find their territorial unity through democratic agencies and elections through the ballot

Citation from President Kenyatta ; “ To all the homeless young person of Africa: for prolongation of Communion with hereditary liquors through the battle for African freedom, and in the house religion that the dead, the life, and the unborn will unify to reconstruct the destroyed shrines. ” Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya, from the dedication in his book Facing Mount Kenya, 1938

Dedan Kimathi- pioneered political battle in Abardare and Mt Kenya forest where there was nil to eat. He led vanguard young person who went through midst and thin. Many of them were imprisoned by the colonisers and others were butchered. He himself was murdered in cold blood but now he is an icon of political freedom non merely in Kenya and Africa but besides in the USA.

Jaramogi Odinga fought for democracy and wrote a book entitled “ Suffering without Bitterness ” . He lived with that strong belief until his decease. He wanted Kenyans wealth to be shared every bit by all cultural groups. His dream is realized by the new constitutional dispensation which was promulgated last twelvemonth

Decision

So we see that if we want to be with Our Lord in His land it is traveling to necessitate a batch more than merely a desire for it – it is traveling to necessitate being crucified with Him. It is traveling to necessitate looking at our ain egos and stating, “ I will travel with Him. ” We get it from the narrative of prophesier Jeremiah holding secret plans made against him by the people. The same is traveling to go on with anybody who is traveling to be a follower of Christ.

It will go on that people are traveling to reject you merely merely because of what you stand for, non because you have done anything incorrect, non because you have caused any jobs.

Jesus ne’er did anything incorrect, but the fact is that His really presence was something their scrupless could non cover with. The same is traveling to go on with anyone who is genuinely following the Lord. Peoples will acknowledge the goodness and the truth, and they will be attracted to it ; and, at the same clip, they are traveling to be repelled by the exact same goodness and truth if they do non desire it themselves. And so they work against the truth. We merely have to be really clear in that apprehension.

We need to acquire the right attitude, but that starts by opening our Black Marias to be able to hear the Word of God. Otherwise, we become like those that Jesus condemned through the words of the prophesier Isaiah: “ They have eyes, but they do non see ; they have ears, but they do non hear lest in hearing they be converted and be saved. ” We have heard the words of God. Do we truly want to hear them? Do we desire to understand them? Do we desire them to do a difference in our lives? The Lord tells us what it is traveling to necessitate: We have to be low, we have to function, and we have to endure with Him in order to be glorified with Him.

Reasoning supplication

God our male parent, you have guided us up to this clip in our lives. You have been naming upon us to atone and accept good intelligence ; you have been naming us to function others so that we can follow you through enduring and rejoice on you with every load we bear, merely as you did for us at Calvary. Send us your Holy Spirit so that we can copy Prophet Jeremiah who prayed for others and even accepted enduring so that your truth may be stand at all times. We know that nil of everlasting value comes in an easy manner. The Prophetss, the apostles and sufferer suffered and died because of standing for the truth in defence of the true religion. Through the intersession of the Blessed Virgin Mary may we be comforted by you. Even if we suffer because of truth and justness as we serve other Kenyans allow us make so without resentment and in your everlasting love. Amons