Surprised by suffering
Submitted by Mark on April 1 2002 23:07:15
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There is an excellent article in the current issue of World Vision Today (the publication of the Christian relief organization World Vision). I've included the beginning of it here: ******** Surprised by Suffering by Tim Dearborn "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality." --Romans 12:12-13 A group of Indian pastors once challenged me by saying: "You Americans are utterly unequipped for life in the real world." "Oh really?" I said. "That's quite a claim. What do you mean?" "You think that life is supposed to be pleasant: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and all that stuff," one said. "When it's not, you think something is wrong that you need to fix. Once fixed, you can get back to a normal state--pleasant. On the contrary," he continued, "we think life is hard. We know we will suffer. Our challenge is to learn how to trust God in the midst of suffering, find his purposes through it, and still have the courage and hope to change it." I think they were right. We do act as if something is wrong when sorrow strikes. Usually we seek the fastest way out--an escape. Some even suggest that our Western economy would collapse if we stopped trying to escape suffering. Much of our society seeks to provide us with medical or chemical escapes. We long for electronic diversions, whether televised, digitized, or pre-recorded. Entire industries are devoted to fantasy vacations or encouraging us to indulge in shopping sprees.... As Christians, we know that the gospel is Good News of Great Joy....How do we live that unshakable hope when we feel like our lives have become entangled in a hopeless web of problems, pain, and troubles?...This hope doesn't cause us merely to give in to suffering, resigning ourselves to it as our lot in life. Rather, hope frees us to live in joyous rebellion against all that keeps life from becoming what God intends it to be....Our world is filled with trapped people. We have the privilege of allowing the Spirit of God to pour out the love of Christ into our hearts, giving us the creativity, compassion, competency, and commitment of a team of rescue workers, doing all that we can to get people out of situations which entrap them. ******** The article continues in this vein. The message I got out of it was something I should have known, and something I definitely needed to be reminded of: One of our roles as Christians is to stand alongside others who are suffering, to support them and love them, rather than trying to eliminate the unpleasantness or even suffering in our own lives. Mark |
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