Suffering & the Christian
0 comments | Posted by Steven Layson on 11 Sep 2011 in From Steve's Study ::
One of the few certainties of life is that we will all experience suffering at one point or another. For some, this suffering will merely be at the level of inconvenience, but for most it will come with overwhelming pain & distress. Some suffering will come as a result of large-scale natural events like earthquakes, floods or fires, while some will come through human-caused tragedies, such as wars and tyranny. For some it will be a mixture of the two, as we see in the famine in Somalia. For others, it will be the pain of chronic illness, or grief at the loss of a loved-one. However it comes to us, suffering, by definition, is difficult to bear. For as long as people have sought to understand life, the problem of suffering has been a vexing one.
In the Scriptures, the “righteous” Job is a classic case in point. It would be hard to imagine the grief that came upon him as, in a very short space of time, he lost his possessions, his children and even his own health. To bear with just one of these would be hard enough, but to lose them all would be overwhelming.
What would you say to someone who is going through what Job went through? What do you say when people suffer? Job’s three “friends” give us a great example of what not to do! They came with their down-pat “religious” answers, & far from comforting Job, ended up accusing and blaming him. As we read through this story, we do well to heed the warning not to make the same mistakes. As we look at the problem of suffering in church today, we must approach the topic with a due sense of gravity & the realization that we do not have all the answers. Things will happen that are beyond our ability to understand or explain.
There is one thing we can know with certainty, however. And that is that we can be assured that no matter what we are going through, it does not mean that God has ceased to love or care for us. God has forever demonstrated his commitment to us by sending his Son, to experience the pain we experience, to suffer the disappointment, rejection and disillusionment we suffer. God’s love for us is so great that he did not even hold his own Son back from death for us.
We may never understand why we are going through the pain we are (Job never did), but we can rest assured that God’s love is unwavering, & that he offers hope of restoration and renewal that we can only dream of.
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