Why does a loving God allow pain and suffering/

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Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Timothy Keller

I recently started reading Timothy Keller's book entitled 'walking with God through Pain an suffering'. As I read these chapters I will be posting tidbits of information of what I have read on this blog.

On page 15 Mr. Keller writes," Our own contemporary western society gives its members no explanation for suffering and very little guidance as to how to deal with it. In just days after the New Town school shootings Maureen Odowd published a column "Why God?" and printed a Catholic Priests response to the massacre. Almost immediately, there were hundreds of comments in response to the column's counsel. Most disagreed with it but, tellingly, disagreed in wild divergent ways. Some held to the idea of Karma, that suffering in the present pays for sins in past lives. Others referred to the illusory nature of the material world which comes from Buddhism. He concluded that the responses to the column were evidence that our own culture gives people no tools to deal with tragedy. Opinion writers had to look to many other cultures and religions to address the darkness of the moment. People were left to fend for themselves. The end result is that today we are more shocked and undone by suffering than were our ancestors.

In medieval Europe approximately one of every 5 infants died before their 1st birthday, and only a half survived to the age of 10. The average family buried half of their children when they were little, and the children died at home, not sheltered away from eyes and hearts. Life for our ancestors was filled with far more suffering that ours is. Yet, we have innumerable diaries, journals, and historical documents that reveal how they took that hardship and grief in far better stride than we do. Mr. Keller continues with the comment that we are not just worse than past generations in this regard, but we are also weaker than are many people in other parts of the world.

Dr. Paul Brand, a pioneering Orthopedic surgeon in the treatment of leprosy, spent part of his career in India and the last part of his career in the United States. He wrote, "In the United States i encountered a society that seeks to avoid pain at all costs. Patients live at a greater comfort level than any I had previously treated, but they seemed far less equipped to handle suffering and far more traumatized by it.

But modern Western culture is different. In the secular world view, this material world is all there is. And so the meaning of life is to have the freedom to choose life that makes you most happy. However, in that view of things, suffering can have no meaningful part. It is a complete interruption of your life story—it cannot be a meaningful part of the story. In this approach to life, suffering should be avoided at almost any cost, or minimized to the greatest degree possible. This means that when facing unavoidable and irreducible suffering, secular people must smuggle in resources from other views of life, having recourse to ideas of karma, or Buddhism, or Greek stoicism, or Christianity, even thought t heir beliefs about the nature of the universe do not line up with those resources.

I will be adding additional information from this well written book as I progress through the chapters. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and if you are grieving during this time I encourage you to do what I have done which is to embrace your suffering and allow God to walk with you through this pain and suffering.

If you are grieving I invite you to visit my website at www.soaringonwingsofeagles.org where you will find encouraging faith stories, grief support information and worship songs that have encouraged my faith during my storm of grief.