Appreciate by Contrast

Rain and sun. Contrasting in the sky. Leaving a rainbow behind. And isn't the rainbow a reminder of God's promises to us? Promises that we can trust in?

The book of Job is, of course, the epitome of suffering and asking God "why?" While Job was a good man the calamities were brought onto him and allowed to continue. So a question that is most brought up by Christians and non-Christians is how could a loving God allow bad things to happen to good people? Why must we all go through life and endure such suffering?

Job asks all sorts of great questions, and God doesn't answer a single one of them. He says, basically- if I may summarize his great rhetoric in a few much less great words: "Hush, child, you couldn't possibly understand. Who do you think you are anyway? I'm the Author; you're the character." (Peter Kreeft)

It makes sense. We are not the authors of this big story. We are tiny pieces of God's immense story, and as we are characters written on the pages, we do not know what the author has written on the next page. We can only live in that present momentary sentence on page 62, and we won't find out what happens about this situation until page 70. Or maybe on page 68 we will get a foreshadowing of what is going to happen, and a new door is opened. One that we never thought possible, only because we cannot see ahead.

What we are getting wrong is our hypothesis that if there were no suffering we would all be happy. Without realizing it, we are taking the stance that happiness and suffering are mutually exclusive. That we can treat them as totally separate entities, not related to each other.

How wrong we are in that. How can one be happy if one hasn't suffered? If you are always getting everything you want in life you are spoiled and appreciate nothing. It is only when we suffer that we can truly appreciate things.

We appreciate by contrast.

A rainy day is enjoyable only because we've had months of intense sunny heat. Those who live in the blustery north appreciate their short summers because they endure harsh winters.

When we work hard and save money for a trip somewhere, we enjoy it immensely because we had to work hard in order to take time to play.

When we are rejected. When we feel like failures. All it takes is one opportunity to change everything. It doesn't matter how many times we fail, as long as we keep trying and working to improve ourselves so that our gifts are even better than they were a few months ago. We are then able to trust that something better is on the next page.