Go Ahead And Stand Out

Recently, I spent some time thinking about a deep sadness I have been feeling. I thought at that time that it would be easy to step aside from the sadness and say, "it doesn't matter how I feel". I mean, who am I? Could it really matter how I feel or don't feel?

The answer is, yes.

I am convinced that everyone as arbitrary as it seems is on this earth for a reason. If someone chose not to believe that, then what is the point really? I certainly don't know enough about Buddhism, but what I do understand is that of it's focus on truths is that suffering is a truth. Suffering is a truth of Buddhism and it is studied.

Buddhist scripture represents that there are different facets of suffering. There are three recognized forms of suffering, eight types of suffering, and one hundred and eight kinds of suffering.

Now I'm not a Buddhist, but I am amazed that so much thought and study and meditation has gone into the idea of suffering. I think it's easy to understand that there is great suffering in our world. There is every day suffering for every day people.

Suffering is relative in that the Wall Street executive that just missed on landing a huge deal suffers quite differently than a single parent that works two jobs in order to makes ends meet. I get that we all suffer differently, but to meditate on and study different forms and types and facets is just a lot of time spent thinking about something that most would rather move through rather than hang out in.

I think it matters that we recognize and accept that there is suffering. Unlike the Buddhist that spends an astonishing amount of time studying suffering, I prefer to focus on one that suffered and left that suffering behind for something bigger and better.

I am a Christian. As a Christian I recognize that I am in a growing minority in our world today. That's weird to write, but I recognize that we live in a post-Christian world. I'm grateful that God isn't in the post-human world.

Jesus suffered in every way that we can imagine. Jesus didn't hang out and study that suffering rather He claimed victory over the suffering. So how is it that the God of the universe came to be with us? That doesn't make sense to a generation that doesn't have it's face buried in a bible. I understand that sentiment.

As I wrote before, I have had a deep sadness about me. I recognize that most when my face isn't buried in my bible or at least my time isn't spent in conversation with Jesus.

Jesus came to have a relationship with people. Think about the relationships you have had all of your life. How did they develop? What were their origins? Go ahead and think about it for a moment.

I'll wait...

Welcome back. As I have thought about relationships I have had over the years, the one facet that was true of all relationships is that we had something in common before the relationship began. If it wasn't terribly obvious when we met, the relationship developed and grew from this commonality that we shared.

That commonality might be playing on the same baseball team or attending the same school or sharing the same blood (relatives) or interest in the same books or whatever. Relationships develop when we can relate to another and that usually begins when both people are in a similar boat.

OK, I've even tied myself up in a knot there, but my intention is simple. God came to us as Jesus to relate to us to bring us back into a right relationship. And for Jesus to really deeply develop a relationship with us, he had to live in our world and experience our experiences.

We suffer. In every way, Jesus suffered too being fully man and fully God.

Why does that matter? How can we relate to God if we sit back wondering why God allows suffering when we think God has nothing to do with suffering?

So I have been suffering this sadness. What that tells me is that I haven't spent enough time recognizing Jesus feels the same sadness.

My sadness takes on a whole new meaning when it is allowed to manifest itself. It usually manifests itself into anger or probably more accurately described as frustration. The anger or frustration comes when I perceive that nobody cares that I am sad.

The picture that ultimately paints is that my sadness grows out of a feeling of being lonely. Jesus came saying that he would never leave me not forsake me. Whenever I feel lonely and that sadness explodes into some other unintended emotion, it is because I have somehow set aside my relationship with the one that promised to never leave me.

I don't know where you are in your belief or disbelief of who Jesus was or is. That relationship is up to you.

My hope is that we can set aside our differences of belief and look at what life is like and how dealing with it alone really doesn't work very well.

I don't profess to have all the answers. I do believe I know the one that does.

Who I am matters, because God came down to earth to hang out with the likes of me. Understanding the depths of that relationship and how I am commanded to pass that relationship concept along to others matters

God made you and me unique. Go ahead and stand out in a crowd.