Yesterday we learned that through the examination of consciousness, we can heighten our awareness of God’s blessings in our lives and become more grateful so that we can more easily find God in all things. But how can we be grateful if we find no blessings from God in our lives, but only pain and suffering? How can we find God in all things in such a life?

First, let’s challenge our understanding of the theme of this retreat, “Finding God in All Things”. Have we romanticized the idea of “finding God in all things”? This means that in our impression, is God only present in things good and beautiful? So, is God present in pain, suffering, even persecution and sin? We need to understand that

if God was only present in truth, goodness and beauty, the Son of God would not choose to be born as a human being, live in a world full of ugliness and evil, and choose to live and walk with people. While God cannot tolerate the sinfulness of human nature, He not only did not abandon or flee from us sinners, but willingly took on human nature and lived amidst sinfulness.

We need to understand that it is the most unimaginable thing for God to do, for He is holy and perfect, the source of all truth, goodness, and beauty. But not only did He willingly live among sinful people, He even took on our sins and bore their consequences for us! As St. Paul proclaimed in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verse 21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Since God is willing to become sin for us, to become our sacrificial lamb, does He have any reason not to be present in our pain, suffering, trauma, humiliation, as well as all the ugliness, evil, natural or man-made disasters in the world?

On this Good Friday, let us learn what it means to “carry the cross”. First of all, we need to know that the so-called “crucifixion” was a capital punishment specifically designed by the Roman Empire to punish rebels, intended to make those criminals experience the most painful, cruel, excruciating, and torturous death possible. In addition to the process of dying on the cross, they also subjected the criminals to the most humiliating and helpless mental torment. The cruel requirement of forcing the criminals to “carry the cross” was to make those convicted of rebellion experience the defeat of being completely conquered, that the very last thing they were made to do before being nailed to the cross was to carry the instrument of their own death along a rugged path of suffering to the place of execution. This was done to demonstrate their complete and absolute obedience to the ruling authority. Jesus knew the torture He was about to endure was a form of punishment that was absolutely horrifying to the people under the rule of the Roman Empire, and it was certainly the most cruel means of governance that anyone had witnessed. Yet it was the will of the Heavenly Father that His only begotten Son should bear this torture innocently to pay for the sins of all of us!

Jesus demonstrated complete and absolute submission to the will of the Father with the spirit of obedience demanded by this form of torture. This spirit of surrender is a reflection and hallmark of Jesus’ entire life, and it is also through this complete obedience that He reversed the rebellion of our original ancestors against the Father.

So when Jesus asks us, His followers, to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily to follow Him (Luke 9:23), He is asking us to learn from Him, to submit to the will of the Father.

Therefore, “following Christ” means giving up our own desires, and instead, following the better arrangements made by the Father for us through faithfulness and imitation of Jesus.

The greatest difference between us and the criminals sentenced to crucifixion is that they were coerced, while we can make choices and responses through the free will given to us by God.

When we make a heartfelt choice to be loyal to Jesus, we allow Him to be the Lord and King in our lives. This requires us to give up being our own masters and allow Jesus to have authority over our lives.

If these remarks were presented at the beginning of this Lenten retreat, they might have scared away many participants. But now, as we have a better understanding of the nature of God and the extent of His love for us, I hope this explanation will make it easier for you to accept what Jesus asks of us as Christians! Ultimately, whether we believe that God’s demand for us is different from the cruelty of the Roman Empire is something for us to judge for ourselves!

Now let’s answer the question we asked at the beginning, that is, if we cannot find God’s blessings in our lives, but only pain and suffering, how can we be grateful and find God in all things?

If God is already the one you love most in your life, and while you experience pain and suffering, you have God who loves you most by your side, accompanying you and suffering with you, wouldn’t this be considered a sweeter experience and a more complete blessing in life?

And most importantly, the focus is no longer the pain itself, but God. This realization becomes the turning point for whether we can “find God in all things.”

Isn’t it easy to find God in the beautiful creations of nature, or in a perfect life or in festivities? But imagine, when we experience pain or are at the lowest point in life, if we can find God by our side, knowing that He has never left us, like a parent, feeling our pain as if it were His own, willingly enduring being pierced in the side, having His heart pierced for our sake, isn’t it most worthy of our gratitude?

God, who loves us the most, would not be the cause of our suffering, but our consolation in our suffering. This is considered a true blessing!

Reflection

Have you ever romanticized the concept of finding God in all things? In what circumstances of your life do you desire to find God? Why?

Have you ever questioned God’s role in the sufferings of your life? Do you think that all the challenges and trials in your life were God’s deliberate arrangements and tests, and that He was only watching from a distance?

Did today’s reflection give you a new appreciation and understanding of the retreat theme of “finding God in all things”, your understanding of blessings, and the role of God?

Today’s Prayer:

Dear Lord Jesus, as I reflect on the suffering You endured for me today and delve deeper into understanding what it means to carry the cross, I feel a heartache I have never experienced before. I asked myself, why haven’t I felt this way before? Is my heart so hardened, so numb? Why am I so indifferent to the suffering You endured for me? This shocked me and made me feel terrible about myself…

What made me even more ashamed is that I know that when I am faced with trials in my life that can’t be compared to Your suffering, You would be by my side, holding my hand, sharing in my suffering, and bearing my burdens, just like in the “footprints” story, carrying me through the darkest valleys of life. But sadly, I failed to realize this before!

Lord, for You, I will continue to strive to die to myself, to carry and bear my own cross, and to accept Your companionship. No matter what obstacles I may encounter, I am willing to embrace them with a new perspective and seek You in them, leaning on You always…

Fundraising Appeal

The following is the “Farmer of Hearts: Finding God in All Things” team, including FLL staff and volunteers.
Please kindly pray for them. May God protect them and sustain their physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

Project Manager: Michael Lam
Writer: Paul Yeung
Editors: Bonny Chan, Rosa Tse
English Editors: Bonny Chan, Paul Yeung
Mandarin Editor: Anthony X.
Cantonese Narrator: Margaret Woo
English Narrator: Bonny Chan
Mandarin Narrator: Rene Ren
Audio Editors: Fonte Ip, Sander Lee, Margaret Woo
YouTube Editors: Fonte Ip, Sander Lee, Arnold Chan
Graphics: Francis Lai, Rosa Tse
Website: Patricia Young, Angela Wong
Podcast: Angela Wong
Social Media: Yollie Leung, Carmen Tsang, Rosa Tse
Theme Music:
“Friends Only” by Introvert Pianist https://www.youtube.com/@introvertpianist
“Watercolor Lilies” by Aaron Kenny https://youtube.com/@contactkennya