{"id":936,"date":"2016-04-28T10:06:04","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T10:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/?p=936"},"modified":"2016-04-28T10:06:04","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T10:06:04","slug":"blog-april-28th-why-is-there-suffering-in-the-world-part-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/?p=936","title":{"rendered":"Blog April 28th Why is there suffering in the world? -Part 12"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Risen-37\"<\/p>\n

He is the Image of the Invisible God! – taken from Colossians 1: 15-17 featuring Debra Crowe on vocals and Lucy Stimpson-Maynard on piano – recorded by Bob Ross- not released<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The featured song is pretty much out of the \u201cVinyl Vaults\u201d (a term I picked up from a rare listen to Classic FM.) \u00a0It must be at least fifteen years old (hence the odd scratch) and is recorded by Debra Crowe, an ex Crofton student who went on to sing with the D\u2019Oyle Carte Opera Company. It has never been released and another unreleased track by Debra \u201cPatiently I wait for the Lord\u201d will feature next week. Bob Ross recorded the song s with Lucy Stimpson- Maynard on piano.<\/p>\n

The featured photo was taken by Ross Gill of Global Fire Creative. It was taken on April 9th<\/sup> during the performance of Risen! The Musical at the New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth.<\/p>\n

The photo portrays the crucifixion of Jesus – the suffering He most have endured on that cross signifies that God is not indifferent to our suffering, indeed He was prepared to take on human form in order to suffer Himself.<\/p>\n

This leads us, in part to consider that life is not just about the here and now – if God does exist then eternity is something real. With this perhaps in mind a story is recollected in Nicky Gumbel\u2019s book \u201cSearching Issues. \u201c Gumbel says that Gavin Read, Bishop of Maidstone until 2001 refers to a boy in his congregation who had shattered his back and who had consequently been in and out of hospital. When Gavin interviewed him, the boy remarked that God is fair. Gavin asked him how old he was and the boy replied seventeen. \u201cHow many years have you been in hospital?\u201d Gavin asked – \u201cThirteen \u201c was the reply. Gavin then asked \u201cSo how can you think this is fair?\u201d The boy replied \u201cGod had all eternity to make it up to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gumbel continues \u201cGod has indeed all eternity to make it up to us and the New Testament is full of promises about how wonderful heaven will be. There will be no more crying for there will be no more pain and suffering. We will change our frail, decaying mortal bodies for a body like that of Jesus\u2019 glorious resurrected body. As Martin Luther once said \u201cI would not give one moment of heaven for all the joys and riches of the world, even if it lasted for thousands and thousands of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gumbel concludes \u201cWe live in a materialistic world which has almost entirely lost its eternal perspective. We need to take a long term view and understand the suffering of this world in the context of eternity.\u201d He quotes Alistair McGrath who states \u201c If the Christian hope of heaven is an illusion based on lies then this idea needs to be abandoned as it is misleading, but if it is true then it must be embraced and allowed to transfigure our entire understanding of the place of suffering in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s now twelve different jig saw pieces attemting to address this most difficult of questions \u201cWhy is there suffering in the world?\u201d And there are more – so please take a look at next week\u2019s blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He is the Image of the Invisible God! – taken from Colossians 1: 15-17 featuring Debra Crowe on vocals and Lucy Stimpson-Maynard on piano – recorded by Bob Ross- not released \u00a0 The featured song is pretty much out of the \u201cVinyl Vaults\u201d (a term I picked up from a rare listen to Classic FM.) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":940,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}