Part Three: Christianity

Do you know much about Buddhism? A few years ago I didn't. But ever since Cambodia I wanted to know more about it since that's a big religion there.

Basically, the son of a wealth king - Gautama Siddhartha - just woke up one day and declared he was Buddha. His religion consists of 4 truths: life is suffering, the cause of all suffering is desire, the way to end suffering is to end desire, and spend your life learning to eliminate desire.

How often in times of suffering we mask the pain? How often in hard times we declare we will chose not to be sad? I think it happens all the time.

Larry Crabb says " we Christians are often practicing Buddhists. He goes on to say that "we kill desire in an effort to escape pain, then wonder why we don't enjoy God." How's that for hitting it home in your heart? That one really struck me hard.

As a Christian we are also taught truths. There are also four of them.

1- Life includes suffering, but life is good.
2- The cause of all suffering is seperation.
3- The way we handle suffering is to discover your desire for God.
4- The new life provided through Jesus must be accepted as a gift of love.

Bottom line, as a Christian when we hurt - we should really hurt. And hurt openly in the putrescence of our God. In this life, we will suffer. But take heart because our Savior has overcome the WORLD!

This post was adapted from ideas in Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb. Specifically chapters 6 and 7

Part Two: Support

"Why is it so difficult to simple give ourselves to each other when things are hard without yielding to the urge to give relief, to help, to try to make things better?" - Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams

"How are you? I'm fine."

"I'm going through a tough time, but i'll be ok. God has a plan."

How often do those conversations exist between friends. In my opinion, it's all the time. We think we need to toughen up. We think we can't be authentic with each other. But that's not the way God wanted us to be. 

Real relationships tell the truth. No cover ups. No lies. No masks. 

Even with God we need to be honest. He cares about us. He wants us to cry out to him. In Shattered Dreams, Larry goes on to explain how Ruth and Naomi spoke to each other. "Don't try to find comfort in explaining the reasons. Don't try to find the spiritual means to trust more. Enter your pain until your feet touch the solid ground beneath you, the solid ground of the restrained passion of Jesus."

Wow - isn't that a statement. My favorite line is "enter your pain until your feet touch the solid ground beneath you, the solid ground of the restrained passion of Jesus."

So, we all have friends. We all have family. Let's support them the way God wants us to. And lets ask they support us the same. We enter our pain. We hurt. We get mad. But all the while God is there waiting for us to touch the ground and know you've hit the solid ground of the passion of Jesus.

The bottom line - is we can't make things better. Only He can.