Don't Stop the Madness

  
photo credit: Deviantart.com

     Accept suffering. "For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps" I Peter 2: 21. Christians are expected to suffer. 
     Tenth Avenue North shares a song in their album "The Struggle" called "Don't Stop the Madness." Listen to their embrace of suffering as part of God's will (I Peter 4:19):

Don't stop the madness. Don't stop the chaos. 

Don't stop the pain surrounding me. 

Don't be afraid Lord to break my heart,
 if it brings me down to my knees Lord.

   No one wants suffering. It hurts. Yet it comes. Sometimes it comes strong. Does God have purpose in it? The song by Tenth Avenue North continues,

But O my God there must be more than this. 

You promised pain; it can't be meaningless. 

So make me poor if that's the price for freedom.

         Hear what the apostle Peter says about suffering. Our doing good puts to silence the ignorance of foolish people (I Peter 2:15). Furthermore, God finds it favorable when we suffer for doing good (I Peter 2:20). Christ's suffering is effective, and can be, as Christ himself suffered, to give us life to righteousness and death to sin (I Peter 2:24). Suffering is part of our identity with Christ, and part of being that holy people to God who proclaim his excellencies, have received mercy, will abstain from the passions of the flesh, and will do good deeds which shall lead others to glorify God (I Peter 1:9-12). Peter discusses more about suffering, and includes by saying that us who suffer should do so entrusting our souls to a good creator. God made us, preserves us, and simply allows suffering on our pathway to heaven according to His good will. Suffering is not the end either. "For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too" (2 Cor. 1:5). We have comfort promised, as well as a heaven without suffering (Rev. 21:4). God provides for suffering and provides for us who suffer.

   So when pain meets you, boldly suffer. You will be free: freer than the greedy soul which begs for self pity, free from the jealous soul which desires temporary satisfaction, free from the uncertainty that suffering is meaningless, and free from the worry that you are alone in suffering. God has not forgotten you. God does not waste the pains we endure, yet with them assures us that His promises are sure.
     God may not stop the madness of suffering in your life. It is not because God is not near or doesn't hear, but it is because even He who was God suffered. Follow Him.