so my question is: how do you non Muslims go through hardships..i mean whats your motivation to keep you patient, etc...
You realize that to answer that question you are actually asking me to bear witness to my faith. I am happy to do so, but I wouldn't want someone to accuse me of proselytizing.
Gene, I suspect I know what your answer will be. I think it would be a good thing if you do post it, to help clear up some of the misconceptions we have about each other. I do understand that if your reply is taken out of context of this thread it would be blatant prozelytizing. But, in the interest of this thread and this question I believe that in the interest of general knowledge it needs to be answered and honestly answered by a Christian.
Ramlah, my apologies for taking several days to further respond to you. It is some of those very hardships that I am dealing with. I have had to place my mother into a nursing home as she is no longer capable of taking good care of herself and is not even cooperating with those living with her who might try to help her. Additionally, some of these people appear to have taken financial advantage of her. She is destitute, and only has given me power of attorney for health care but not financial affairs, meaning that I don't have the legal authority to stop people from stealing from her. And that is just the beginning.
So, I'm a little strung out under all of the pressure and stress. And you ask, what's my motivation to keep me patient?
1) My love for my mother. I know that if I am to help her that I must persevere. It is just that simple. I don't have the option of allowing my feelings of being overwhelmed to actually win. Therefore, I will go forward whatever the cost. I will do this because I care about the outcome and am willing and able to face what I must to provide the best care avaiable for her.
Now this illustration is obviously taken from my mom's circumstances. But I have other pressures and hardships I am dealing with at this same time. And bearing those hardships are often, like with my mom, just other instances of saying I do so because I care enough to pay the cost of caring.
2) I am coordinating the long-term recovery of my community following a flood that left 178 families damaged, many homeless. Everyday there are new issues to deal with, new possiblities, new challenges. None of us who are working on this receive any sort of compensation. In fact some of us are vilified by the very people we are trying to help because we aren't doing it in a way that they would prefer for their individual case but are considering the community as a whole. Why do we bother? Why do we endure? Again because we care. Speaking for myself, I feel called to do this work as a outgrowth of my own experience of receiving God's love in my life and realize that he calls me to serve others in his name. If he was mocked, spit upon, and crucified for what he came to do, I should not think that I who serve in his name will necessarily find life any easier.
3) Jesus himself tells us that we must each pick up our cross and follow him. I don't think that these were empty words. Those that seek to be followers of Jesus must understand that it isn't always going to be easy. There is a cost to being Christ's disciple and we either bear it knowingly and gladly or we probably will find we aren't willing to bear it at all. So why do I? Because I have received what I consider to be an immeasurable gift from my Lord, and there isn't anything I wouldn't do for him that he asks of me.
A true story coming out of the Vietnam War begins with two soldiers under heavy attack in the jungle. The first man has his leg blown off by a mine and the second takes shrapnel wounds to his chest. As they await rescue, the medivac heliocopter coming for them is blown out of the sky. At that point the man with the chest wound got to his feet and began to drag the other man who had no leg out of the jungle. The man who couldn't walk told his friend to let him go and to save himself, but the first man refused to quit. He said, "If you die, I'm going to die with you." And somehow he got them out of the jungle together.
The men stay in touch through the years and one day the man with just one leg gets a note from his friend, who has since moved to England, that (completely unrelated to anything they experienced together in the war) he has come down with epiletic siezures and is looking for a nurse. At this the friend in America sells his home and moves to England to take care of his friend who drug him out of the jungle. When someone comments on this act of altruism in tending to his friend who needed constant care, his only response was: "After what he did for me, there isn't anything I wouldn't do for him."
That sentiment is exactly how I feel about Jesus. So, if there is something that he asks of me that is a little hard to endure, I try to remember what it is that he has already endured for me, and it makes me glad to do whatever he might ask.
4) Of course there are plenty of hardships that are not an act of caring for another. We ourselves get sick. Sometimes we are taken advantage of by others. We lose a job. A disaster destroys our house. Bad things happen to good people, including ourselves. In times like this I think of my friend John MacAllilly. John and I entered seminary together. His brother and I had taught Sunday school together years before. And we both had daughters named Rebecca only a year apart in age. In May 1982, John's 2-year old daughter came down with a case of the flu. But she didn't get over it as kids do. A couple of days later they were at the hospital and Rebecca was in critical condition with viral menningitis. Rebecca died the weekend of graduation. Literally thousands of people prayed for her, and she still died. I remember talking to John afterward, and his words still speak to me: "We live in a world where children die. It isn't something I wanted, but it is something I have to accept. Should I expect that just because I am a Christian that I and my family will be spared all of the tragedies of human life? I would will it if I could, but that is not the world we live in. So, either I trust God to have the best plan for my life and for Rebecca's and entrust her to God or I don't. I've chosen to trust in God, and I trust him enough to trust him with Rebecca as well. I don't pretend to understand his will, but I can accept it."
Jesus said, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). So, while we don't always understand the reasons for our troubles, we do understand that they are not the end of the story for us either. That whatever it is that we must face and deal with in this life, and we all must face some things we do not want, that there is more to this life than living or dying and trying to make it through the night. So as a Christian, I trust my life, such as it is, to the God who made me for his purposes not my own. And with many a fellow believer before me, I pray this prayer at least once a year when I renew my personal covenant with God. (This is not a required supplication within Christendom, just something I have taken to doing the first of every year.)
I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. Glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. Let this covenant now made on earth be fulfilled in heaven. Amen.
May I ever be faithful in keeping myself at his disposal, for he has already proved faithful in having secured his salvation for me, and thus I have entrusted all of my life, my family, friends, and my fortune to him. May I never walk away from that promise I have made.
That's a different argument though.