Title: On my troubled days... (Psalm 102)
Contents
Last Saturday, I watched a TV program called “Living and Old Soldiers”.
It was a story about patients suffering from unfamiliar diseases called “chronic pain syndrome” and “neuromuscular pain syndrome”. Patients with both diseases were suffering from extreme pain that ordinary people could not even imagine. The pain was so severe that a 41-year-old man clenched his teeth, endured the pain, and was weeping.
Although it is not such extreme pain, we too sometimes experience mental or physical pain in our lives. Such suffering is something that other people cannot take over, and it is something that other people cannot understand well.
I don't know if it was because the patients who appeared on the TV program were airwaves or because they weren't believers in Jesus, but I couldn't find any images of them trying to overcome the pain with faith, just struggling to overcome the pain in such an excruciating pain.
Christians can pray in moments of suffering.
Of course, praying may not make the pain go away.
However, the moment we pray, we can experience God's presence and God's touch. That is why prayer is a great strength to endure extreme pain well.
Psalm 18:4-5 says this.
“The cords of death have entangled me, and the floods of iniquity have terrified me; the cords of Sheol have been around me, and the snare of death has come upon me. My cry has been heard before him.”
What pain are you experiencing right now?
If the problem of suffering is something you cannot solve on your own, please do not blame the environment.
Complaining or complaining is of no use.
Instead, you can pray.
The prayer we cry out in pain should not be just a prayer that simply gives us peace of mind.
It must be such an earnest prayer that opens the eyes of God and the ears of God.
Such a prayer, offered in the belief that the living God will surely answer this prayer, groaning and crying in pain, is sure to reach the ears of God.
And when God's appointed time comes, God will answer that prayer and solve the problem of suffering.
Today too, I hope that you and I will go out and cry out earnestly to the God who listens to and answers our prayers with all the problems of life.