. . . vanity of vanities! All is vanity. (Eccl 1:2)
It was good for me to be afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. (Ps 119:71)
The past few weeks I helped care for my mom as she died from cancer. I briefly discussed in the last blog how this experience has affected my thoughts on death. It has also made me think on suffering as I watch my mom suffer. Let me take some time and share some thoughts on suffering.
Consider these two questions: Why did God allow Stalin to take the lives of 20 million Russians? Why did God allow a gunman to take the life of my son?
Which question is harder to answer?
The Stalin question multiplies the evil 20 million times, so on a purely objective basis, the Stalin question would seem to be the more difficult one.
But it isn’t.
The two questions are the same question, and yet they are not. To the man who lost his son, the question is deeply personal, but for the man today asking about Stalin, the question is intellectual and theoretical. To the man who lost his son, the suffering is close and intense, but for the man asking about Stalin, the suffering is distant.
Suffering is not primarily an intellectual issue. It is a pastoral one. This fact does not deny intellectual answers to why God allows suffering. Such answers exist, and as intellectual answers they can be cogent. But the most difficult aspects to suffering are the pastoral ones.
When people suffer, they don’t need logic. They need a hug. They need compassion. They need an ear to listen. They need love. Reason is inadequate to meet their needs. Sometimes we forget this, but suffering has a way of bringing to the surface human weakness and the human need for something beyond food, water, and sleep. Suffering reminds us that there is more to a man than biology and logic. Suffering, thus, points us beyond earth. In suffering, the curtain is pulled back and we get to see earth in its rawest form.
Suffering is natural to earth, but most people make earth the pursuit of their lives. They want more of earth – more money, more land, more power, more fame, more sex, more knowledge, more youth, you name it. All of the above are among the pleasures earth offers. They are the things people chase. People chase earth. In this sense, Earth is the most common god people have.
The problem, however, is that earth is not God. God made us for Himself, but we would rather be a rich, comfortable business owner with a poster family. To most people, that kind of pursuit is more important than knowing God.
But suffering exposes earth. It calls us not to make earth our hope. Earth may offer good food, a warm home, a fat bank account, political power, and the adulation of others, but it also offers cancer, divorce, rape, poverty, backbiting, prison, injustice, floods, earthquakes, death, and more. In other words – suffering. If someone wishes to chase the goods of earth, suffering is a stark slap in the face that in the end, earth isn’t what you hoped for. In the end, earth is bankrupt.
To people inclined to pursue the false god of Earth, suffering is a necessary mercy. If suffering opens someone’s eyes to see the emptiness of earth and to pursue instead the knowledge of God, it will have been a great blessing. Earth is short-sighted. Suffering has the potential to turn people away from a path that promises short-term pleasure but delivers long-term pain and emptiness.
God insists that this broken, fallen earth produce suffering because He wants us to look beyond earth for our meaning and fulfillment. In a fallen world, suffering is necessary. We need it because without it, we would be all the more enticed to chase that which would doom us.
Sometimes you hear people talk about life on earth being meaningless, and when they talk such talk, often one of the first examples they mention is meaningless suffering – perhaps the suffering of an innocent child. And on the terms of mere earth, they may be quite right. They do see something that is real, for apart from God, earth is meaningless. Earth all by itself leads nowhere. That is the message of Ecclesiastes. If you rip God out of earth and try to discern meaning in earth, you will come up empty. Thus, what seems to be meaningless suffering carries meaning because if nothing else, it demonstrates the meaninglessness of earth on its own. So-called “meaningless suffering” screams to you to stop pursuing earth. There is no meaning there.
But the irony is that the very people who say earth has no meaning often spend their lives pursuing their meaning in earth. They recognize that earth cannot fulfill them, but they seek their fulfillment in it. When you recognize that earth on its own is empty, broken, and meaningless, you should look beyond earth for meaning and fulfillment. Suffering helps you see this reality.
Thus, even when suffering seems meaningless, it is that sense of meaninglessness that is part of its meaning. It points you away from earth so you can find your purpose elsewhere.
As I watched my mom suffer, I saw so clearly how empty and shallow earth is. I saw suffering that, on earthly terms, had no meaning. But what I saw drove me to think more on God, who Himself suffered and bled for me, and in doing so, instilled meaning into His suffering and gave me hope in mine.
