Sometimes we analyze our lives and try to detect what sins we have committed that God is punishing us for. I think the value of the book of Job, and later on the teachings of Jesus, show us that the righteous don't always prosper, nor do the wicked always suffer. One of the great examples of this is in John 9:1-3, where Jesus and disciples come across a blind man, and the disciples ask Jesus, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" This is direct evidence that the Mesopotamian doctrine of the righteous and the wicked was alive and well. The disciples attributed his blindness to sin. Jesus' answer was very instructive--"Nobody sinned." You can just imagine the reaction of the disciples. What? You gotta be kidding!!!! Nobody sinned? How could that be? Then Jesus went on to say that it was so that the glory of God could be displayed, and he healed the man. The point is that not all suffering is due to sin. There is such a thing as innocent suffering, and that God can work through that suffering for his glory. ~Dr. Bricker
This lesson in John 9 is one I have come across in several studies on grief and loss and it has stuck with me for both personal and philosophical reasons. It makes me angry when someone tries to place the reasons for suffering in the hands of sin. Or blessing in the hands of consumerism. Christ's teaching spoke contrarily to the culture then, as I believe it speaks to our culture now. The story of Job and the lesson Jesus gives raise the awareness of just how narrow our human understanding is. It would be simpler to understand "cause and effect" as a relationship between people and their suffering/blessing, but we are freed from such simplicities by the great complexity of God. He is bigger than our simple reason and finitude of logic and so responds to our "either/or" with "neither." There have always been things for which humankind has tried to account, but fails to do so accurately...I think suffering is one of the trickiest. We want answers, justifications for our suffering, and "cause/effect of sin" does not satisfy the innocent. Without something more than what we are capable of understanding, it just feels like pain, loss, or injustice...and suffering is often these things, but the tricky part is not as simple as "who sinned/what caused/what deserves" it. But then neither does "for the Glory of God" satisfy as an answer. Because then the motive for our suffering and explaining that just makes God sound well...like a self-serving, maniacal tyrant. BUT while "for His glory" may not serve as an answer for the "why" and "reason" for our suffering, it does satisfy as the hope through our suffering. The hope is that the Glory of God and His Greatness is what will be seen in light of our suffering and is made manifest because of it. "For His Glory" is more the result of suffering than it is the reason for it.
At least these are the terms I've come to thus far. I grapple with these aspects of grief and grace, loss and hope, suffering and mercy on a regular basis, it is just part of my life story right now...trying to put these few thoughts into adequate words seems near impossible. I don't believe in pat-answers, they don't satisfy me, and because of it there are many more frustrating things to consider...most of which I am trying to come to terms with and/or vainly trying to understand. But suffering in its many forms is often inexplicable. I appreciate the perspective of suffering on a large scale, as well as a personal one. It is generally understood that we as human beings deal with suffering in more than one way...by that I mean there are different kinds of suffering, which we must face differently. I know the discussion of suffering in a general wide-scale is tragic and often deeply heart-wrenching, as with loss in the proportion of disasters like Katrina, wars, famine, etc. I also know how the suffering of personal loss, can be much more painful.
In the past four years I have lost my sole surviving grandparent, my biological mother to cancer, and my father has suffered two strokes...my life, while not being defined by the effects of these losses has been reshaped by them. This article (Francis I. Andersen, "The Problems of Suffering in the Book of Job") reminds me foremost of a book I have lived by (took me two years to get through it) by Jerry Sittser, 'A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss.' In it is the confirmation of God's abiding love throughout our suffering, even when it is inexplicable...beyond comprehension or explanation. Even when there are those around us who, like Job's friends, tell us our loss is punishment, judgement, consequence, the balance of fate, or a myriad of other philosophies all of which I've heard pandered. But as impossible as it is to understand loss...to see a "good" a "reason" or "purpose"...besides that, the whole of suffering is overcome with the heart of Love. I think it is this realization that enables us to move from a place of suffering to facing it...embracing it, and then because of it becoming more than someone who is suffering and has suffered.
Sittser says, "Catastrophic loss by definition precludes recovery. It will transform us or destroy us, but it will never leave us the same." I will never understand why God saw fit that I finally begin a relationship with my biological mother, and then have her stripped from my life a few years later...but I have learned, and become dependent upon, the hope that because of this loss I can become more like Christ and be closer to Him in ways that only suffering allows me to be. Loss, is never easy, it is always only loss. But it is Grace that goes beyond the inability to understand, and the unanswered questions of why.
Love's ultimate display is found in suffering - that is the work of Christ on the cross - and the depths of Love can be found amid our own suffering - that is the work of Hope. It doesn't make the loss any less, or the questions any fewer, but it does make the void which can only be filled by Love even greater.
I'm sorry I can not be more concise...but addressing suffering never is.
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