今天我們要思考第三個關於處理難以承擔的苦難的步驟──不要浪費太多時間尋找苦難的原因，而是聚焦於如何去面對它。聖經讓我們看到耶穌花很少時間去解釋人類的苦難，更沒有解釋如何消除苦難。如果耶穌嘗試解釋苦難，那麼祂的福音便會變成哲學，這樣就不是福音了。哲學嘗試解釋一切，可惜一切依舊不變。耶穌沒有怎麼樣去作解釋，但祂卻改變所觸及的一切。耶穌來不是要帶來一種哲學，而是一個事實。

那個事實是甚麼？事實是耶穌自己經歷了苦難，並將它轉化為更高層次的東西。從這事實，我們領悟出我們的哲學，那就是我們藉以活出生命的原則和步驟。請留意是先有事實，然後才有關於事實的哲學。這個不單是一個「好消息」，更是戰勝罪惡和苦難，從中產生出一種生命之道。

第四個步驟是，要提醒自己，在神的宇宙中，祂只容許那些祂能使用的東西出現。我們在今天的經文看到耶穌提出苦難臨到我們的九個來源：混亂的宗教人士（假基督）、社會的戰爭和衝突、自然災難等等。然後耶穌說：「但這些事終必為你們的見證。」換句話說，你不能逃避麻煩，也不能只當它是神的旨意來忍受，你需要好好地利用它。

We look now at the third step in the process of dealing with unmerited suffering: don't spend too much time trying to understand the reason for suffering - focus rather on how you can deal with it. Notice, Jesus spent very little time trying to explain human suffering, much less explain it away. Had He undertaken to explain it, then His gospel would have become a philosophy - in which case it would not have been a gospel. A philosophy undertakes to explain everything, and then leaves everything as it was. Jesus undertook to explain little, but He changed everything He touched. He did not come to bring a philosophy, but a fact.

What was that fact? The fact was His own method of meeting suffering and transforming it into something higher. Out of this fact, we put together our philosophy - a system of principles and procedures by which we live out our life in this world. Notice that fact comes first, and then the philosophy about the fact. The good news is not merely "good news"; it is the fact of sin and suffering being met and overcome, and a way of life blazed out through them.

The fourth step is this: remind yourself that in God's universe, He allows only what He can use. In the passage before us today, Jesus gives the nine sources from which suffering comes upon us: confused religionists (false Christs), wars and conflicts in society, calamities in nature, and so on. Then He says this: "It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony." In other words, you are not to escape trouble, nor merely bear it as the will of God - you are to use it.