Episode 74 - Suffering

Suffering indicates something that is painful.  This state of distress has caused people, even within religious communities, to assume the source and cause of this pain. 

One of these assumptions is that suffering is a consequence of a person’s behavior. Some think that God has to do with one’s suffering while others think that with one’s bad decisions, suffering comes along, and God allows it because He respects our free will. However, not every time that someone suffers is a cause of the person’s wrongdoings – e.g. an infant in pain, natural disasters.

Other assumption is that God created the suffering because He wants His people to get closer to Him, or because He is saving the person from worse harm in the future.
These assumptions have sometimes been used as an explanation for suffering often in times of anguish, where one can ask themselves, “where is God in this situation?”

It is important to realize that we usually cannot explain the suffering. In suffering, we want to remember and understand that God is always with us, and that He is beyond us in His omnipotence. We strive to humble ourselves and realize that even though we can never know or understand His actions - as Jesus said when washing the disciple's feet, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this,” (John 13:7) - we do know His nature: God is perfect and God is love. We put our trust in Him because we know He loves us and He never makes a mistake. As Psalm 145:18-19 describes, God “is near to all who call upon Him.” It is in Him where we can find strength and comfort to endure suffering.