Monday, 11 April 2011
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Suffering with Suffering
A friend of mine suffered the loss last month of his only brother. I clung to him because I knew his pain -- 4 years ago I lost my brother unexpectedly as well. I had attended a bereaved group for some time, but for the most part it was geared toward parents losing their children and not sibling loss. It was fine for me to be there, but I was the only sibling survivor that came to the meetings. Sibling loss is common, yet commonly forgotten.After a few months of attendance I realized how much the bereaved in the group either rejected/questioned God, or leaned on God for understanding and hope in dealing with the loss of their child. It was interesting to see the two parallels -- people were either hot or cold, but not lukewarm about it. I find it interesting because Jesus told us not to be lukewarm about our faith.
Many of us go through trials and tribulations in our lives. Some of us suffer so much that we reject God's existence. Some of us suffer so hard that we lean on God to get through and make peace with our suffering. Sometimes we even reject God out of anger and come back to Him after we've had time to understand our suffering. Any way we go, we depend on God either to take the fall or pick us back up.
The main rejection statements people have are along the lines of:
If there was a God, He wouldn't let this happen. If God existed, why is He letting people suffer? If God is all-powerful, why doesn't He feed the starving children in the world? How is God merciful and loving if He allows this to happen to me? If God really loved me, my life wouldn't be this bad.
We tell people when they are suffering and need God's help to pray -- to talk to the Big Man Upstairs and He will fix everything. Unfortunately, that's not entirely true in the way we want it to be. We already know what we want to be fixed and how we want it fixed, but that's not necessarily God's solution. We cannot ask God to save our friend's life and expect Him to do it. He hears us, but His plans may differ from our desires and He may answer our prayers in a way we might not always like.
If God answered every single prayer at its face value, we'd have no reason to keep the faith sincerely and work for anything in our lives. We would manipulate God's graciousness if He gave us everything we wanted. Occasionally we all suffer and we want to answer why -- we want someone or something to blame. Sometimes bad things happen to good people just like good things happen to bad people; it doesn't mean there isn't a God just because life sucks sometimes.
There's a lot of argument as to why bad things happen in God's world. Some people believe it's due to the sins we all commit ourselves -- "Christian karma," if you will. Some people think it's because God put us here and let us go our own sinful and evil ways, and punishes us because of our predecessors' bad choices. Both of these schools of thought are different ways of thinking under the umbrella of free will. If God were to control everything there would be no free will, and to expect Him to would mean we'd be willing to sacrifice our choices in life.
People don't remember that in the beginning, God created a world without suffering and pain and gave us all free will to do as we please. In return He asked only for some obedience. Well, as humans who hate being told what to do, of course we turned our back on obeying God's law, and God being an entity of justice, brought suffering as punishment for our sins.
Any Christian strong in their faith knows God exists through the good and bad things, and will tell anyone that God gives us blessings along with trials. It is the weak in faith who reject God when things don't go the way they want it. God isn't here to fulfill our every desire. Sometimes we don't realize that our desires and our needs are very different. I didn't desire a lot in my life but I appreciate what my life has been for who it made me become today. We don't grow without some work and pain; not all pain is bad. It's important to know that it isn't always God's doing when we suffer, but rather our own doing.
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- From: meems
- Name: meems
- About Me: My husband? Yeah he's the one up there preaching. Me? I'm the one that makes sure his shirt is clean, makes sure his sermon is in order, and helps plan events. I'm the pastor's wife.
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Amen
I love the biblical book of Job because it is devoted to these very questions. Job lost everything from his family to his health and the best his friends could do was sit there and hurl accusations in his direction while claiming that he had sinned and brought the situation upon himself. Job would not "curse" God but he did question God and what I love the best is that the Lord almighty answered him without punishment. Yes, Job did not understand what was happening but God had not abandoned him and the Lord listened to his bitter cries and answered him. The accusing friends were declared to be thoroughly wrong.
Personally I have known many people who have suffered bitterly through no fault of their own. I agree 100% when you say, "Sometimes bad things happen to good people just like good things happen
to bad people..." In my own life I lost a child to a miscarriage and I asked "Why?" without fear and I was angry too because that is a part of the grieving process. Angry people often say things that they do not mean because they are responding out of the intensity of their pain and sometimes pain is irrational. There is a big difference between questioning God and rejecting God. Job questioned God without rejecting God.
My greatest concern is that it seems like so many Christians are very quick to judge others rather than giving them the compassion and the space they need to express their pain in the midst of suffering. We forget all too easily, I think, that the way in which God's presence is often experienced by others is through the body of Christ. A true Christian friend is one who lets us cry, lets us express the rage, holds us without judgment and lets the tears fall and when that happens faith is restored and the healing begins. Thankfully God is not just an entity of justice- God is love and in Christ God accepts us exactly as we are warts and bumps and bruises and questions and all.
"Any Christian strong in their faith knows God exists through the good and bad things, and will tell anyone that God gives us blessings along with trials. It is the weak in faith who reject God when things don't go the way they want it."
Let's be very, very careful when we start point out who is weak in their faith and who is strong. I know people who have been devastated by loss who have felt utterly separated from God and have come even to doubt His existence yet I see more plainly in them than in some of those who are "strong" in their faith that the Holy Spirit is working mightily in them. Remember it was that Christ chose the weak to confound the strong...
But people are lukewarm, because it's part of the human condition, and God will take all of them at some point in time, even after passing, and they won't be lukewarm anymore. God tells us over and over again in scripture, "I came to save all." No less than 50 times. Not everyone can grasp spirituality in the same way or the same time as others.
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - Ah yes, you do make a good point... but you're reading it a bit differently than I intended....
The weak in faith may be stronger by the Holy Spirit working in them, but the weak in faith consciously reject God even though He's working in them. I'm not talking about God working through them, I'm talking about them embracing God's working in them. I'm more talking about people being selfish and wanting God to give them everything they want in their life and rejecting Him when He doesn't provide as THEY see fit, more like a "spoiled brat" situation. They think they know better than God about what's best for them, they don't have the faith that He will do what's best.
I'm not saying these people should be looked down on. I'm perfectly imperfect myself, and my faith has been tested in the past, and I've rejected God before. As my faith grew stronger I realized that "God doesn't hate me" when bad stuff happens to me, or when I don't get what I want. That's all I was talking about. As my faith strengthened, I put aside my need to blame God for the unfortunate events in my life. It doesn't mean I don't get upset when things happen. It doesn't mean I don't get angry. It just means I don't get angry at God, because I know He has plans for me, and everything happens for a reason.
I can understand when someone who loses a child or has another terrible and life-changing event happen in their lives to come back and ask God, "why?" and even reject God... but I'm not talking about that being wrong.
More so I'm talking about our quick answer to what we should, as Christians, tell someone when they are in a rough spot. many times we just tell them to pray. It's just not that simple. They already feel like God isn't answering them. They already feel like God doesn't care. Why would prayer help, in their mind? It'll help them, but they won't want to accept that.
Why don't we tell them that God hears their prayers even if they don't go the way they think it should. That God is still there even if we feel alone - that it's US that is allowing us to feel that way and that it's ok to feel that way sometimes. That God's "got this" and that even if we leave Him, He'll be there when we get back. That the perfect life with no pain and no suffering is what we look forward to when He brings us home and we enter the gates of Heaven.
Sometimes we have to be in a low place to realize when we're in a high one. If life were great all the time, we'd be jaded. We wouldn't have anything to be thankful for sincerely.
"I know people who have been devastated by
loss who have felt utterly separated from God and have come even to
doubt His existence yet I see more plainly in them than in some of
those who are "strong" in their faith that the Holy Spirit is working
mightily in them."
People can be weak in their faith - and reject God, but that doesn't mean that God has left them. When someone rejects God, their faith is weak (or non-existent). Faith is belief in God, not based on proof. Someone who has rejected God's existence can't be strong in their faith, that is an oxy-moron. To them, their bad experience(s) are proof that God doesn't exist. By definition, they're weak in faith.... so I really don't understand... If a person rejects or accepts God based on how bad or good their life is, then really they don't have faith, because faith is the belief in something without proof.