{"id":119,"date":"2014-08-25T15:55:30","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T15:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/spirituality\/?page_id=119"},"modified":"2014-08-25T15:55:30","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T15:55:30","slug":"jesus-did-not-complain","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/spirituality\/jesus-did-not-complain\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Didn’t Complain"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was at the Assembly of God church during\u00a0an evening service in Lethem<\/a>, Guyana<\/a> some time back. The guest preacher was from Boa Vista, Brazil<\/a> and he spoke in the Portuguese<\/a> language. Nevertheless, I could have understood him fairly well.<\/p>\n

When he started talking, he seemed pretty calm, and I thought to myself, “this one might not get emotional and ecstatic like the others”. But they all started calmly, as I remembered. Normally, when guest preachers\u00a0visited the church, the voice\u00a0would raise gradually, and the\u00a0emotions ramp up until they\u00a0hit a climax. Then, with tears welling up in the\u00a0eyes for the love of Jesus, he or she would close the service with a prayer and a softer note.<\/p>\n

But this one, would he do the same? It didn’t same so at first. He delivered his message in a normal tone, then\u00a0started to narrate a story of how he was riding his motorcycle to reach a church about 100 miles away. In the middle of the night, about 18 miles from the church, his motorcycle broke down. He had to push his motorcycle 18 miles to the church and by the time he had reached, it was daybreak. Nevertheless, he related, he reached on time for the service.<\/p>\n

Indeed, this preacher was one stout, powerfully structured man in this thirties. And when he narrated the story of having to push his motorcycle eighteen miles to reach in time for the service, it reminded me of the saying “God doesn’t give us more than we can take”. Indeed, this man seemed capable of handling such a task from the looks of him alone.<\/p>\n

“But why would the devil put such an obstacle in my way?” he continued “So that I could complain? So that I could be upset with God? So that I could ask God why he was letting this happen to me? My friends, the important thing is that I reached the church the next day…on time. But why should I complain for the trouble? When Jesus lay on the cross, dying for my sins…brothers and sisters…Jesus didn’t complain.”<\/p>\n

Then his voice broke. As tears formed in his eyes he put his mike down, turned around, raised his hand and started to pray.<\/p>\n

This is the kind of effect that Jesus had on a man\u00a0thousands of miles from the place of His birth; and thousands of years from the time of this birth. Ask yourself this question: by what miracle and by what power did the gospel bridge such vast distances in time and space. Then ask yourself this question: if Jesus wasn’t the Son of God, then who was He?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was at the Assembly of God church during\u00a0an evening service in Lethem, Guyana some time back. The guest preacher was from Boa Vista, Brazil and he spoke in the Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus Didn't Complain - Spirituality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jesus Didn't Complain - An Article by Patrick Carpen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/spirituality\/jesus-did-not-complain\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus Didn't Complain - Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jesus Didn't Complain - An Article by Patrick Carpen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/spirituality\/jesus-did-not-complain\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/patrickcarpen.com\\\/spirituality\\\/jesus-did-not-complain\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/patrickcarpen.com\\\/spirituality\\\/jesus-did-not-complain\\\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Didn't Complain - 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