Message to myself: The essence of faith in this life is learning how to live with suffering and sorrow.
The mark of faith is patience and persistence. A primary mark of rejecting faith is bristling at inconvenience. It starts with building a map of reality that includes all manner of self-serving expectations. “This isn’t right. Life should not be so painful!” But revelation says up front that life is meant to be painful, and God’s hand in our lives will always bring some pain and sorrow. Not because His love fails, but ours does. The fault is with us.
We are born broken in a broken reality. There is a measure of apparent hostility from the universe, but it’s not what all the wild horror fiction imagines. It’s broken because we are broken. As we begin to embrace divine revelation and move back toward His design for us, we find that reality can be a friend and ally. The natural world around us is cheering us on in the struggle to get right.
What we justly deserve is a life of brutal misery, a lingering painful death and eternity in Hell. What God in His mercy offers us is a way out of that. But we have to accept that our escape is only partial at best until He is finished with us in this life and calls us home.
Stop whining and serve His glory.
Let’s not confused whining with cynicism about worldly structures. We have a reputation to maintain 😉
Whining is defined as complaining about disruptions to one’s personal wishes. Denunciation of sin is, indeed, not whining.