Hinsdale Magazine | Insight
Praying Through Clenched Teeth In the face of the carnage recently wrought by hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and shootings, people are asking: Where is God in all this? If God is so great and good, then why does He allow such suffering?
governments that use aid money to pad their lifestyle… to ordinary people who keep building homes in the path of notorious weather cycles… malevolent or misguided human choices are the Number One reason for disease, destruction, and premature death on this planet.
greatness, or existence of God. But, even if we reject God, we are still left with suffering or the action of evil, and this reality ought to invite us to ask WHY? Why so much pain in a world of such plenty? What is our part in it? And where will we find the power to change?
When my uncle was murdered by bankrobbers… When my cousin was beaten to death at age 24… When my sister’s baby turned out to be terminally deformed and my brother’s fiancée was left disfigured and brain-injured in an accident not of her making… When witnessing the hollow eyesockets of people in the developing world, living on dust and garbage… I have asked these questions myself. How about you?
If human sin could be faced and hearts and minds changed… If self-sacrificing love could become the motivating force and not simply an occasional feature on the evening news before the next commercial for the latest idolatry… If we could make loving our neighbor as we wish to be loved our preeminent priority, I wonder what percentage of the agonies of this world might go away?
The Redemption of Suffering
I wish I had an answer that eliminated all doubt, dismay, or discomfort. As the famous historian, George F. Kennan, once wrote, however: “The truth is sometimes a poor competitor in the marketplace of ideas.” It is “complicated, unsatisfying, full of dilemmas, always vulnerable to misinterpretation and abuse.”1
And how might we also be able to deal more creatively with a SECOND source of misery. Much suffering is the necessary downside of a having a world with dependable and interdependent physical laws. Think about this with me.
The Reality of Suffering
But this does not stop the truth from being true. Suffering is a reality of life we must all face. How we do that depends a lot on what we believe about the reasons for suffering or the course of its redemption.
The Reasons for Suffering There are two preeminent reasons for agonies of this world, and the FIRST is neither pleasurable nor popular to consider: A great deal of suffering is the result of tragic, wicked, or stupid human choices. A gunman showers bullets on a crowd of concert-goers. A Hollywood mogul uses his power to violate women. A suburban shopper spends money on another luxury item that could have fed the hungry or brought relief to disaster victims. From companies that poison the environment with harmful chemicals… to third-world 1
The clear majority of the time, we are immensely grateful for cell-growth and gravity, for the action of wind and water, for the way that the shifting of the earth’s plates creates mountains, valleys, and plains. It is impossible, however, to have a world with such overwhelmingly positive forces and not have occasions where they interact in such a way that creates pain. Again, were a cure to human selfishness found, there would be ways of mitigating this downside considerably. There would be ways of moving people out of famine-prone regions or of not building homes where they are prone to destruction by hurricanes and floods. There would be ways of investing more fully in the suppression of disease in ourselves and others – or in the recovery and care of people caught in the confluence of this world’s physical forces. It is more convenient to see or experience suffering and rail against the goodness,
George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy: 1900-1950 (New York: Signet Books, 1951), p. 56.
Tim Keller, The Reason for God, p.53.
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DAN MEYER Columnist Daniel Meyer is senior pastor of Christ Church of Oak Brook, Illinois. 82
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The religious tradition I come from posits two perspectives that have seemed to help some people endure the agonies that don’t go away. The first idea is that God is with us in our suffering. The Cross is an image of this – a sign that far from being distant or uncaring about our pain, God feels it with us. Sometimes I can’t remove your suffering, he says. Sometimes I can’t explain how it fits into a larger plan. But this I promise you: I know what you’re going through. I will never leave you nor forsake you. The second perspective some of us hold onto is the belief that a day is coming when suffering will be undone. In the final book of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, a climactic moment comes when little Sam Gamgee discovers that his friend – the great wizard Gandalf – is not dead but alive. Sam cries out: “I thought you were dead! I thought I was dead myself!” And then Sam asks an immensely important question: “Is everything sad going to come untrue?” The answer that faith gives to that question is--yes. One day, by the Grace that holds this Universe together, everything sad is going to come untrue. This does not mean that the sad things will not have happened. It does not mean that they will not have hurt terribly. But the assurance of God is that, in the end, the joy “will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost.”2 Given what I’ve seen recently, and have experienced of suffering, and belief about God, I’m trusting in that. ■