Dear reader, I would like to let you know that I won’t make further updates to this blog. I am currently focused on other projects, and God is directing me to start a new project along the lines of Just Cris.

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I’ll keep this site up for as long as I can so that you can have access to content that I produced on it.

I thank everyone who has visited this site, the subscribers to the newsletter, the fans of the Facebook page, finally, everyone who supported me through Just Cris.

May God bless you all!

In my previous post, I started a series meditating on the sufferings of Job and the lessons we can learn from his experience. We talked about how good people suffer, it doesn’t happen necessarily because they did something wrong.

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Now, let’s look at another point to Job’s experience:  he showed us how God expects us to handle suffering and difficult situations. Job is an example for us.

We’ve talked about suffering in the last posts, and whenever someone talks about suffering in the Bible, one has to mention Job.

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You probably know Job’s story: God allowed the devil to destroy everything he owned and everyone he loved, even attack his body. He just didn’t allow him to die. In a short while, Job lost all his possessions, his family, and his health.

But what was the point of such suffering? In fact, we can learn important lessons from the story of Job, and we will explore that in this post and in the next few posts that I am writing in this series.

First of all, I’d like to talk about one thing that many people still struggle with, which is when good people suffer.

When we read the New Testament, we see that suffering was a common topic. In those writings, people were encouraged to deal with suffering positively.

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If you read the first letter written by the apostle Peter, you will see that he talks about it a lot. I’ve talked about it before in this post. Paul has also written about handling suffering in several of his letters.

Suffering is a tough topic to write about. And this subject has caught my attention now and then lately, so I’d like to write a few more words about it.

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I’ve got to tell you, I am not the most experienced person when it comes to suffering, not at all. I’ve been through difficult situations, but now looking back, they don’t seem that big of a deal. Maybe that’s me, it is much easier for me to remember the good stuff than the bad.

A few days ago, someone got to this blog by searching these words on Google: “I quit my life”.

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When I saw that, the first thing that came to my mind was to pray for that person, whoever he/she was.

And then I decided to write a few lines in case this person comes back. Or in case someone else searches for the same keywords and gets here.

If this is how you are feeling now, this is for you, whoever you are…

“Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” (1 Peter 5:8-9)

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When Peter wrote this letter, he intended to encourage the brothers and sisters in Christ. He wrote several recommendations, especially for those who were suffering.

Back then, the Christians were persecuted. In fact, there are still Christians all over the world today who are suffering and being persecuted because of their faith. If you want an example, check out this post I wrote about Helen Berhane.

Last week I attended a class about reaching out to children and teenagers who live in social risk conditions. This class was taught by one of the most experienced missionaries at JEAME, the nonprofit organization with which I’ve been working.

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This class is a preparation for the people who wants to work with them especially in the juvenile detention center, where they reach kids and try to rehabilitate and reintegrate them into society.

I learned about the reality of the children and teenagers there. Almost all of them come from broken homes, very poor families, and soon they get involved with drugs. It doesn’t take long until they start thinking that the traffic of drugs is their only option in life.

But there is another fact about them that I had no idea about: the majority of them were abused in their childhood or early teens, by someone close to them or after they entered the “system”. I’m not talking about only sexual abuse, but also psychological or physical.

Many things in life get us worried. And a common reason for worry is our finances. If money is getting short, we start making calculations, trying to figure out what to do. We worry.

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Do you know what God says about it? Check it out in Jesus’s own words:

Waiting is one of the toughest things to do, and waiting for God’s timing is not naturally easy for us either. We have to learn.

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What we usually don’t understand about God’s timing is that while we wait for something, we are going through a process. We are not waiting in vain. There is a reason for the wait, and God knows it.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)