The role of Suffering – Sunday, June 06, 1982
Of all man’s questions regarding human existence, the problem of suffering seems to be one of the most perplexing. For some individuals, pain and suffering appears to be punishment from God for sins committed or laws broken. Others see it as an indication that there is no God: for surely, reason these people, an omnipotent God could have organized a universe without the presence of pain and sorrow. And for others, the question remains an unanswered riddle.
No single conclusion completely answers this question concerning the role of suffering. In one sense, it is punishment brought on by our own doing, for much pain and suffering is the consequence of man’s own actions. Unwise decisions, greed, envy, and other forms of ignorance have their own natural results. And just as the child is burned from touching the hot stove, so too, unhappiness is the predictable outcome of breaking the eternal laws of heaven.
These consequences, however, are not arbitrary punishments from a spiteful God, but natural results of disobedience to just laws.
But all suffering is not punishment. Indeed, it seems at times that the pure and innocent suffer the most in this existence. The newborn infant may be stricken with defects at birth; untimely death through accident or disease sometimes overtakes the loveliest and best of our friends; and Jesus, Himself, the most innocent of all, suffered in agony upon the cross at Calvary.
These facts, however, are not evidence that God is non-existent or that He is not powerful. Rather, they are evidence that He has used His wisdom for the benefit and education of mankind.
“Sorrow is knowledge,”1 observed Byron. And to this Henry Giles added, “The capacity of sorrow belongs to our grandeur; and the loftiest of our race are those who have had the profoundest griefs because they have had the profoundest sympathies.”2
Thus, the divine qualities of patience, charity, and empathy for the pains of others are many times born and nurtured through suffering. For God to withhold a knowledge of the world’s pains and wrongs from His children, would be to deprive us of our humanity, leaving us ignorant of the lessons of heaven.
Even with this, our understanding of suffering is not complete. Faith is still required; faith that God is; faith that His divine administration extends to the human situation; and faith that His love is that of a kind and eternal parent.
1 George Byron, Sublime and Beautiful Thoughts, Klopsch Press, 1904, p. 1639.
2 Henry Giles, The New Dictionary of Thoughts, Standard Book Company. 1956. p. 632.
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June 06, 1982
Broadcast Number 2,755