Synopsis
A review of Be Useful: Seven Tools For Life by Austrian bodybuilder, actor, and politician Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (b. July 30, 1947)
- Paul: Burn 🔥
- Matthew:
- Paul: Steal 📚
- Matthew:
Introduction
By Paul Anderson
I am not sure why my son picked the topic of suffering for the January Bible study topic. However, it did make for some interesting reading. Not only was the reading interesting in the Bible, but also it made for an unusual combination of authors in my extra-biblical materials: Clive Staples Lewis and Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger. Who would put those two together? The only thing in common they have is unusual middle names.
I am not sure how the Schwarzenegger book was going to relate to the suffering topic other than maybe my son did not like reading it. Perhaps, he wanted me to join him in his suffering though bad literature. After all, misery loves company. But I was willing to endure a bad book for my son. Plus, how bad could it be? Schwarzenegger has lead an interesting life, and he is a chess player. So, he gets points in my book.
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| Photo from Twitter: https://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger/status/1745898393568976899 |
Arnold lays out seven steps to achieving a successful life.
- Step one: Have a clear vision.
- Step two: Never think small.
- Step three: Work hard.
- Step four: Sell.
- Step five: Learn from failure.
- Step six: Shut your mouth, open your mind.
- Step seven: Break your mirrors.
I realized that suffering is critical in the process of becoming successful.
Arnold shared many of the stories from his climb to the top of the bodybuilding world, especially in the third step. He mentioned how Muhammad Ali didn't start counting his sit ups until it hurt. They both seem to be gluttons for punishment, and that fact explains why they both were able to strive in their "No Pain, No Gain" worlds. This attitude is not my nature and might be the key reason for the lack of success I get from my weight-lifting routine.
Unfortunately, not every step he lays out is as persuasive as the hard work chapter. The later chapters of the book are unconvincing that anyone could recreate his success with just these seven tools. I got the impression that his mega-success had a lot more to do with luck than selling, being in the right place at the right time. He was fortunate to be on top of the bodybuilding world right when it began to take off. He rode a weight lifting boom into celebrity status, and this fame opened other doors. He parlayed the bodybuilding publicity into an acting career, and then he used his Hollywood fame into winning a timely recall election. By the time he advises you to break your mirrors, he lost me. After all, he admits, in the first chapter, that he was looking in the mirror every day to have that clear vision of winning the Mr. Olympia title seven times. Don't you have to look in the mirror every day to grow? Burn 🔥
While enduring pain can be a step to reaping a material harvest, suffering has greater spiritual benefits.
Here are my top 12 verses on Suffering:
Jesus On Suffering
Matthew 19:14 King James Version
14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Mark 8:31 King James Version
31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Luke 22:14-20 King James Version
14 And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him.
15 And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:
16 For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:
18 For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.
19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
John 16:33 King James Version
33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Suffering In The New Testament
Acts 5:41 King James Version
41 And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
Romans 8:18 King James Version
18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
1 Peter 2:19 King James Version
19 For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.
James 5:10-11 King James Version
10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
Suffering In The Old Testament
Deuteronomy 4:29-31 King James Version
29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
30 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;
31 (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.
Judges 10:13-16 King James Version
13 Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more.
14 Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.
15 And the children of Israel said unto the Lord, We have sinned: do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only, we pray thee, this day.
16 And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the Lord: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.
Ecclesiastes 5:12 King James Version
12 The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
Jeremiah 15:15-19 King James Version
15 O Lord, thou knowest: remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke.
16 Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.
17 I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation.
18 Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?
19 Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.
Conclusion Of The Whole Matter
The word "suffer" occurs 165 times in the Bible while the synonymous word "tribulation" occurs 25 times. I searched "tribulation" as well to get verses from the Torah and History books of the Old Testament. It appears that suffering is a much less developed idea in the OT, as compared to the New Testament. I guess it makes sense since the idea of a Suffering Messiah was still a mystery until after the cross.
The word "suffer" can be used a couple of different ways. You can tolerate or put up with little children like God will suffer his people a long time. You can allow someone to sleep. But the more common usage in the Bible is to endure pain or hardship. Christ was predicted to suffer physical pain and death. He even predicted the same kind of suffering for his followers. However, He added that this pain was good.
So, if you are suffering, be of good cheer, endure, and be counted worthy.
Clive Staples Lewis (CS Lewis) starts his book, The Problem Of Pain, with a quote from George MacDonald, Scottish author, poet and Christian Congregational minister.
"The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.”
Since my son's suggested reading for the month touched lightly on the subject of suffering. I chose this book to finish out the month. It was so good; I read it twice. Steal 📚.
I never realized pain was a problem. I avoid pain whenever I can. And most of my life has been successful at that quest. However, in everyone's life some rain must fall. And I have had my share. But to deny God because I suffered was beyond my thoughts. I always related to idea that suffering was a part of God's plan.
"A perception of this truth lies at the back of the universal human feeling that bad men ought to suffer. It is no use turning up our noses at this feeling, as if it were wholly base. On its mildest level it appeals to everyone's sense of justice."
So, the problem is not so much that the existence of pain in our world could be used to deny a good and all-powerful Creator, but rather to understand why would a good and all-powerful Creator let the good suffer.
Of course, I have to remind myself that there is no one good, not even me. Well, especially me. So, some of my suffering is clearly deserved. I have brought it on myself, by my own actions. Some sin is obvious, and I know I have earned some justice because of them. However, some sin is subtle, and I don't even realize how much they effect my life. I struggled with a life of sloth and gluttony. I had climbed up to 295 pounds and didn't even know it. What would get my attention?
We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shovelling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
It was gout. Gout hurts. A lot.
Suffering an episode of gout did get my attention. This pain made me look at my life more closely. I began by cutting out slushy drinks from Taco Bell and replaced them with water. I began to eat better, by added more Vitamin C. I created the alliteration diet with Fruit Fridays and Salad Saturdays. I tracked my steps with Fitbit and counted my calories with Cronometer. Slowly, over time, I began to move more and eat less. I ended up losing 130 pounds. It was then that I realized just how slothful and gluttonous I had been.
Gout wasn't God's way of getting me to lose weight, it was God's way of getting me to lose sin.
We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character.
More Quotes from The Problem Of Pain
That God can and does, on occasions, modify the behaviour of matter and produce what we call miracles, is part of the Christian faith; but the very conception of a common, and therefore, stable, world, demands that these occasions should be extremely rare. In a game of chess you can make certain arbitrary concessions to your opponent, which stand to the ordinary rules of the game as miracles stand to the laws of nature. You can deprive yourself of a castle, or allow the other man sometimes to take back a move made inadvertently. But if you conceded everything that at any moment happened to suit him - if all his moves were revocable and if all your pieces disappeared whenever their position on the board was not to his liking - then you could not have a game at all. So it is with the life of souls in a world: fixed laws, consequences unfolding by causal necessity, the whole natural order, are at once the limits within which their common life is confined and also the sole condition under which any such life is possible. Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself
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It would, no doubt, have been possible for God to remove by miracle the results of the first sin ever committed by a human being; but this would not have been much good unless He was prepared to remove the results of the second sin, and of the third, and so on forever. If the miracles ceased, then sooner or later we might have reached our present lamentable situation: if they did not, then a world, thus continually underpropped and corrected by Divine interference, would have been a world in which nothing important ever depended on human choice, and in which choice itself would soon cease from the certainty that one of the apparent alternatives before you would lead to no results and was therefore not really an alternative. As we saw, the chess player's freedom to play chess depends on the rigidity of the squares and the moves.
165 Bible results for “suffer” from King James Version.
- Old Testament (46)
- Genesis (3)
- Exodus (2)
- Leviticus (3)
- Numbers (1)
- Deuteronomy (2)
- Joshua (1)
- Judges (4)
- 1 Samuel (1)
- 2 Samuel (2)
- 1 Kings (1)
- 1 Chronicles (1)
- Esther (1)
- Job (5)
- Psalm (12)
- Proverbs (3)
- Ecclesiastes (2)
- Jeremiah (1)
- Ezekiel (1)
- New Testament (119)
- Matthew (12)
- Mark (11)
- Luke (14)
- Acts (16)
- Romans (2)
- 1 Corinthians (7)
- 2 Corinthians (8)
- Galatians (3)
- Philippians (4)
- Colossians (1)
- 1 Thessalonians (3)
- 2 Thessalonians (1)
- 1 Timothy (2)
- 2 Timothy (5)
- Hebrews (10)
- James (1)
- 1 Peter (15)
- Jude (1)
- Revelation (3)
25 Bible results for “tribulation” from King James Version.
- Old Testament (4)
- Deuteronomy (1)
- Judges (1)
- 1 Samuel (2)
- New Testament (21)
- Matthew (3)
- Mark (1)
- John (1)
- Acts (1)
- Romans (4)
- 2 Corinthians (2)
- Ephesians (1)
- 1 Thessalonians (1)
- 2 Thessalonians (2)
- Revelation (5)
Scripture contributions for January 2024 by: Paul Anderson, Matthew Anderson
