One of the great gospel truths is that we have been adopted as God’s children, his heirs together with Christ.

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

- Romans 8:15-16

What does it mean to be a child of God?

Now if we are children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

- Romans 8:17

J. I. Packer explains what it means to “share in [Christ’s] sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory”:

In this world, royal children have to undergo extra training and discipline, which other children escape, in order to fit them for their high destiny. It is the same with the children of the King of Kings. The clue to understanding all his dealings with them is to remember that throughout his life he is training them for what awaits them, and chiselling them into the image of Christ.

- J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004) p. 251.

This chiselling may well be painful, but it is necessary for us if we are to attain to our “high destiny” as children of God.

Let me tell you about my job.

I build control systems. A control system is just a computer system that allows you to have an overview of some other system: it gathers information about what state your traffic lights are in; it shows you where your trains are; it gives you a ‘big picture’ of what state all your equipment is in. And, having this big picture, you are able to make decisions, and implement plans: that train is running late, so we will let this one through ahead of it; the generator has been running for too long, so we should swap over to the backup; the electronic road sign is faulty, so we should send someone to repair it.

For many Christians, this is the picture they have of wisdom. They desire wisdom because they believe that it will help them to understand the big picture, and to act accordingly. This is an attractive idea, of course, because it lets us fool ourselves into believing that we can have control over our lives, if only we have enough wisdom.

But I don’t believe that this is what the Bible teaches about wisdom at all.

Respected theologian J. I. Packer, in his book Knowing God, describes wisdom as like learning to drive a car. You don’t need to know why there is a car parked in your lane, or why the driver in front of you is braking; you just need to know how to respond correctly to those situations.

The fact is that, as we go through life, we will not understand everything that happens, nor will we have the ‘big picture’. We have to trust God for those things. Instead, if we are to be wise, we must learn how to respond to the problems, situations and obstacles in our path in a wise, godly way. That’s what wisdom is.

How do we become wise? Well, drivers have instructors, and so do we.

“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth… All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

- John 14:15-17, 25-26

Jesus promised that, even though he was going away, he would ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to us, in order that he might teach us all things. The Holy Spirit teaches us and reminds us of all the things that Jesus has said… and this is what leads to wisdom. If you like, the Bible is our road rules manual, whilst the Spirit is the one who instructs us how those rules apply in our current situation. The only difference is that our instructor promises to stay with us always.

Last time we looked at the work of the Holy Spirit in transforming us from sinners to saints (‘sanctification’). It is important to understand, however, that sanctification is not the reason that we are in right relationship with God; rather it is a sign, a symptom if you will, that we already are.

But what about that first step, of entering into relationship with God. How does that happen? Does the Holy Spirit have a role there too? The Apostle Paul certainly thought so.

Writing to the Corinthian church, Paul starts out by challenging those who were contending amongst themselves how genuine their Christianity was: some argued that, because they followed Paul, the guy who planted their church, they were the purest; others that, because they listened to Apollos, the latest preaching sensation, they were the most up-to-date; still others tried to convince their fellows that because they followed Cephas (Peter), Jesus’ own apostle, they were the most authentic; and, of course, some claimed that they only followed Christ, not requiring the intervention of any man or woman.

But Paul wouldn’t have a bar of such petty squabbles. “Is Christ divided?” he asks,

Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?… For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel – not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

- 1 Corinthians 1:13, 17-18

The message is clear – we don’t become Christians because of the ‘wisdom’ of those who preach, nor by our own ‘wisdom’, for human wisdom would consider the message of Christ to be foolishness: who could accept God becoming man, let alone dying on a cross as a sacrifice for us? Just in case we miss the point, Paul goes on to drive it home for the next chapter and a half!

The kind of wisdom that we need to understand Christ’s message of salvation comes only from the Spirit. “We speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began… but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:7, 10). Before we can believe on Christ and be saved, the Spirit must work in our hearts and our minds, and so allow us to understand God’s wisdom.

Paul illustrates this idea with a beautiful metaphor:

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

- 1 Corinthians 3:6-9

I believe that there are two important principles here. Firstly, faith in Jesus is not something we have to do in order to be a Christian; rather it is the gift of God, delivered by his Spirit, that allows us to believe on Christ. This is sometimes referred to as ‘regeneration’. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you require some Pentecost-like experience of the Spirit in order to be a ‘real’ Christian, or even to experience the Spirit’s work first-hand in your life; the fact is that, if you are a Christian, you have experienced the single most powerful work of the Spirit that you can or will ever experience… it is his signature work.

The second principle is this: when we share the gospel, our ‘success’ or ‘failure’ has nothing to do with us. Respected theologian J. I. Packer puts it like this:

It is not for us to imagine that we can prove the truth of Christianity by our own arguments; nobody can prove the truth of Christianity save the Holy Spirit, by his own almighty work of renewing the blinded heart. It is the sovereign prerogative of Christ’s Spirit to convince men’s consciences of the truth of Christ’s gospel; and Christ’s human witnesses must learn to ground their hopes of success, not on clever presentation of the truth by man, but on powerful demonstration of the truth by the Spirit.

- J. I. Packer, Knowing God

We can plant and water the seeds of the gospel, but unless God causes them to grow there is nothing more we can do. No amount of doing will bring your friends, family and co-workers into the kingdom; we must pray, therefore, that God will act through his Spirit to bring regeneration to their hearts.

When I was at uni I had a Coke addiction (the wholesome bubbly soft-drink kind, rather than the narcotic kind ). I used to consume some ridiculous quantity per day – breakfast, lunch, dinner or any time in between. I’d squeeze one in between lectures, and often have one in my hand as I travelled from place to place. I’d get on the train for a 2 hour train trip and consume 1.25 litres… and then get another one on the far end! In one night, preparing an end-of-semester lab report, I consumed 5.25 litres of Coke… about 8am the next morning I stumbled up campus to hand it in, before returning to my college room, laying down on my bed and convulsing for a while, as my stomach acids did their work! (Don’t try this at home, kids.)

There came a time when I decided that I should try to ‘de-tox’. Quite apart from the amount of money I was spending, my sleeping patterns were really starting to suffer, to the point where I never actually felt ‘rested’ – the pall of fatigue hung over me all the time. So I decided to go cold-turkey.

The trouble was, however, that not drinking Coke had all kinds of consequences: the first and most obvious was that I started to experience crippling headaches. These lasted a week or so, after which I began to feel better. ‘The worst is over,’ I thought… but I was wrong.

You see, I had overcome the physical cravings, but the habits of several years were still ingrained: in my head, I ‘needed’ Coke in order to study; I would enter a take-away shop and head directly for the refrigerator; drinks tables at parties and weddings were particularly tempting, because I could convince myself that so long as I didn’t have to pay for it… etc.

Sin works the same way. The Apostle Paul says:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

- Romans 7:14-20

Why do we continue to sin, even after we become followers of Christ? I believe (and this is only my opinion, as I am not sure that the Bible is entirely clear on this point) that it is because we have been freed from the power of sin but not yet the habit of sin.

Jesus, through his sacrifice on the Cross, has conquered sin; he has dealt with the consequences of sin; as a result we can be in a right relationship with God. The physical cravings for sin have been overcome. We are now in Christ, rather than in the world.

However we are not yet made perfect. We still fall back into old habits. The patterns of my old life are so deeply intertwined with who I am, where I go, who I hang out with, and the way I think that they slip past my guard… before I know it I have reverted to the old way, even though in my head I know better.

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

- Proverbs 26:11

There is an entire industry of so-called ‘self-help’ books, showing you how to reform our lives in various ways: seven habits for more effective living; overcoming temptation in 32.5 easy steps; how psycho-therapy changed my life etc. Groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and others offer twelve-step programs to assist people in overcoming addiction, and these are no doubt valuable. On the whole, however, we human beings are not good at reforming ourselves; when it comes to sin, ‘self-help’ is actually ‘no-help’.

Fortunately for us, there is a better way. God is the only person with a proven track record when it comes to turning lives around. He offers believers his Holy Spirit to effect transformational change in our lives. (Oh, if you want the fancy-schmancy word for this process, it is ‘sanctification’.)

Hi, my name is Tim, and I am a sinner. If you, like me, are struggling to overcome the addiction of sin then the best thing you can do is cry out to God and ask him to work in your life to destroy the habits that lead you back to your old life. That is the kind of prayer that God loves to answer! The next best thing you can do is ask a Christian friend to support you, and to hold you accountable. There is no shame in asking for help – after all, we are all sinners here!

Take a moment to stop and consider the difference between a window and a mirror.

A window, of course, is something you look through. It allows you to see out; obstacles, hazards, scenery, people – it’s all on display if you care to look. On the other hand, a mirror allows you to see only one thing: you. No matter how close to or far away from it you get, you will always be in the picture somehow.

Both are made out of glass. But a mirror has a thin layer of silver behind it, that makes all the difference between seeing other people and seeing only yourself.

Sin is like that. No matter how thin (or thick!) its presence in our lives, it spreads itself out so that instead of being able to see the needs, desires and gifts of others, we see only ourselves. At best, we might see someone else in the picture, but only in relation to ourselves… How can they help me? Am I better or worse than they are? What will I gain from helping them?

Pray that God will turn your mirrors into windows, and that he will allow you, like Alice, to step through the looking glass!

That night the king could not sleep; so he ordered the book of the chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him. 2 It was found recorded there that Mordecai had exposed Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s officers who guarded the doorway, who had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.

“What honor and recognition has Mordecai received for this?” the king asked.

“Nothing has been done for him,” his attendants answered.

The king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the palace to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows he had erected for him.

His attendants answered, “Haman is standing in the court.”

“Bring him in,” the king ordered.

When Haman entered, the king asked him, “What should be done for the man the king delights to honor?”

Now Haman thought to himself, “Who is there that the king would rather honor than me?” So he answered the king, “For the man the king delights to honor, have them bring a royal robe the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden, one with a royal crest placed on its head. Then let the robe and horse be entrusted to one of the king’s most noble princes. Let them robe the man the king delights to honor, and lead him on the horse through the city streets, proclaiming before him, ‘This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor!’ “

“Go at once,” the king commanded Haman. “Get the robe and the horse and do just as you have suggested for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Do not neglect anything you have recommended.”

So Haman got the robe and the horse. He robed Mordecai, and led him on horseback through the city streets, proclaiming before him, “This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor!”

Afterward Mordecai returned to the king’s gate. But Haman rushed home, with his head covered in grief, and told Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him.

His advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, “Since Mordecai, before whom your downfall has started, is of Jewish origin, you cannot stand against him—you will surely come to ruin!” While they were still talking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman away to the banquet Esther had prepared.

Jesus famously taught that we should do unto others only what we would want them to do unto us, the so-called ‘golden rule.’ This biblical episode, however, illustrates a slightly different principle: seek for yourself only what you would be willing to offer to others. Haman wanted the king’s recognition and honour, but was chagrined when he was asked to be the instrument by which this was conveyed to Mordecai.

Do you rejoice when your friends (or your enemies!) receive the things which you long for? Or do you become consumed with envy? Is it wrong to desire the good gifts of God? No, of course not. Is it wrong to want them so much that we cannot celebrate when someone else receives them? I believe that the Bible says yes. We can be disappointed, sure, but if that disappointment becomes a wedge between us and our neighbour then we have crossed over into sin.

Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.

     We are the clay, you are the potter;

     we are all the work of your hand.

- Isaiah 64:8

After reading through Isaiah 64 together, a friend shared this image with me.

When you work with wood, there is usually some measure of imperfection in each piece of timber that you use. Some will try and avoid that imperfection, or perhaps cover it up; others will stubbornly work in spite of that imperfection; the sign of a master woodworker, however, is that he or she is able to take that imperfection and incorporate it into the beauty of the overall design.

God is the ultimate master craftsman. He takes our weaknesses and turns them into his strengths; he creates beauty out of ugliness; he uses our imperfections to accomplish his perfect will. And in doing so, he demonstrates his glory. Paul knew this:

But [the Lord] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Don’t be afraid of your weaknesses; pray that God will use them as an opportunity to show his power. Don’t pray for the removal of hardships, persecutions or difficulties (Paul tried this – read 2 Corinthians 12:1-10); instead, pray that God will bring glory to himself through them.

And he will make a thing of great beauty out of you.

Anyone who has suffered devastating grief or dehumanizing pain has at some point been confronted by near relatives of Job’s miserable comforters. They come with their clichés and tired, pious mouthings. They engender guilt where they should be administering balm. They utter solemn truths where compassion is needed. They exhibit strength and exhort to courage where they would be more comforting if they simply wept.

- D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord? (2nd edition, Baker Academic, 2006) p. 221.

Over the last two posts, we have looked at some of the ways in which people understand and explain the presence of evil, pain and suffering in the world. Initially I was planning to leave it at that, but the more I thought and prayed about the issue, the more I was convinced that that was not enough.

No matter how thorough your understanding of these ideas, there will still be times when explanations and theories are not enough. Platitudes about building a better character will sound hollow in the ears of a date-raped woman; explaining God’s higher purposes for creation will probably not comfort a man who has just lost his family in a car accident. In this post, then, I wish to offer some suggestions about comforting those who are grieving, ill or suffering.

At this point I should offer a brief disclaimer: I am neither a trained nor an experienced grief counsellor. I debated about whether to write this article at all, given my lack of qualification, but came down in favour of doing so in order to bring a necessary balance to the last 2 articles. Much of what I will offer here, then, is drawn from the experiences of others and as a result your mileage may vary.

The first thing that you need to know about counselling those in grief is that it is not your job to ‘fix’ them. Your chief allies in such a situation will be your ears, not your brain or your mouth. You do not need to have all the ‘answers'; you do need to have a compassionate heart and listening ears.

Frequently in the midst of suffering the most comforting “answers” are simple presence, help, silence, tears. Helping with the gardening or preparing a casserole may be far more spiritual an exercise than the exposition of Romans 8:28. The Scriptures themselves exhort us to “mourn with those who mourn” (Rom. 12:15).

- D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord? (2nd edition, Baker Academic, 2006) p. 223.

The second thing I would say is this: don’t be afraid of, or embarrassed by, strong emotions. Unless you are able to accept the tears, the uncomfortable silences, and even the anger, you will not be able to meaningfully share in the journey. By being embarrassed, you add to their burden because (naturally) they then feel they have become an embarrassment to you – and hence they won’t want to be around you. Consider these words from C. S. Lewis, written in the period after his wife died of cancer:

An odd byproduct of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll say something about it or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don’t… Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers.

- C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) pp. 10-11.

There is no such thing as ‘normal’ grief. There will often be common areas, but no two people will grieve in exactly the same way. Some people will want to talk about things, to remember the good times out loud with you; others will not, preferring to process these things privately. Some will want to have others around; others will not cope with being around people. Some will turn to God for comfort; others will rage against him.

This last, by the way, does not necessarily signal a loss of faith. Even a man like C. S. Lewis, so greatly respected for his faith, may have severe doubts in the midst of trials.

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms [of grief]. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is in ruin, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be and empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this meani? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?

- C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) pp. 5-6.

All of these preferences and emotions are valid – there is no such thing, in my view, as a ‘wrong’ way of expressing grief. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to tell your friend how they ‘should’ feel or act. In other words, share their journey without dictating the destination, or even the mode of transport.

I am sure that there are many more things to be said than these brief cautions, but I don’t have the experience or wisdom to know what they are. Perhaps you have some suggestions, based on your own experiences… why not leave a comment to share them with us?

(This article is a continuation of an earlier one. If you haven’t read it yet… read it now!)

Last time we looked at the questions of pain and suffering from the point of each of the world’s main religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and atheism. The treatment of each was necessarily brief, partly because I was trying to boil it down to the core ideas so that we could readily compare, and partly because I am in no way qualified to discuss any more than the basics of any of those world-views.

There was, of course, one notable exception from our list of religions – Christianity. The rest of this article will be devoted to redressing that imbalance.

Before we start, let me offer an apology: If you are expecting to find here the answers to all of your questions how and why God allows pain and suffering to occur then I am afraid you are going to be sorely disappointed. I am not presumptuous enough to think that I have answered all of my questions, let alone yours as well! My aim is much more modest. I have attempted to pull together some (but by no means all!) of ways the Bible treats suffering. I hope that this will be a useful starting point for you as you wrestle with God’s Word yourself.

Because this is both an important issue and a complex one, I would really appreciate any feedback that you have to offer – either questions or comments. You can do this either by emailing me, or leaving a comment here. I will do my utmost to respond to all questions as best I am able.

A result of sin

Key to any Christian’s understanding of the presence of pain and suffering in the world is a correct understanding of sin. As we read through the first three chapters of Genesis, we understand that God created the world, that he created mankind “and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Gen 2:15). Adam and Eve, however, were not satisfied with the role that God had set out for them, and took matters into their own hands; as a result both mankind and the earth itself were placed under a curse (Gen 3). All suffering since is a result of that sin of rebellion, and millions just like it, subverting God’s plan for creation.

One thing that it is important to note, however, is that this relationship between sin and suffering is a causal one, but not a mathematical one. That is to say that more sin does not necessarily mean more suffering on an individual basis. Otherwise why would the psalmist write:

I envied the arrogant
    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
They have no struggles;
    their bodies are healthy and strong.
They are free from the burdens common to man;
    they are not plagued by human ills.

- Psalm 73:3-4

On the surface, this does not seem at all ‘fair’. Why should it be that “only the good die young” (as Billy Joel would put it)?

[W]e must always remember that the Bible does not present us with a God who chances upon neutral men and women and arbitrarily consigns some to heaven and some to hell. He takes guilty men and women, all of whom deserve his wrath, and in his great mercy and love he saves vast numbers of them. Had he saved only one, it would have been an act of grace; that he saves a vast host affirms still more unmistakably the uncharted reaches of that grace. From a biblical perspective, hell stands as a horrible witness to human defiance in the face of great grace.

- D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord?, (Second Edition, Baker Academic, 2006) p. 92.

Don’t fall in to the trap that Jesus’ disciples did, of trying to trace individual afflictions back to individual sins (see John 9:1-2). God doesn’t work that way – at least not in the kind of time frame we can see. Ultimately, of course, God’s justice – his ‘fairness’, if you like – will be revealed in his final judgment of the entire earth.

A signpost to God

[E]verything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or obtained. In other words, if it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo jumbo… the result would not be to make life delectable but to make it too banal or trivial to be endurable. This of course is what the cross [of Christ] signifies, and it is the cross more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ.

- Malcolm Muggeridge, Homemade, July 1990, cited in John Piper, Desiring God, (3rd Ed., IVP, 2003) p. 266.

As I mentioned in another place, I believe that God sometimes uses suffering and pain to point us to himself.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

- C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (HarperCollins, 2002) p. 91

We have a God who invites us to come to him and express our doubts, to question God and to plead with him for some kind of response. Consider the start of Psalm 22:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, and am not silent.

- Psalm 22:1-2

It is OK for us to be baffled when a father is taken away from his family by a fatal car crash; it is right for us to be outraged at the rape of a young woman; it is proper for us to pour out our anguish when those we love are struck down with cancer. We should, like so many of the psalmists, bring those things to God, because it is in doing so that God promises to act.

No temptation [the Greek word here could also be translated testing/suffering] has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted [tested] beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted [tested], he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

- 1 Cor 10:13

God offers us comfort in two facts: he knows you, and will not let suffering increase so much that you cannot bear it; and he will give you the strength and courage (“a way out”) to “stand up under” suffering when it comes.

Jesus was and is certainly no stranger to strong emotion. The gospels record him as being tired (so tired, in fact, he fell asleep in a fishing boat in the middle of a storm! See ); grieving at the death of his friend; indignant at his disciples ‘shielding’ him from children; angry at the immense corruption in the temple; and desperately afraid as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. He suffered agony on the Cross for our sakes – and when he did so, in his hour of greatest suffering and torment, he turned to the very words of Psalm 22 above (see Mt. 27:46; Mk. 15:34).

This is not a cry of self-doubt from Christ’s lips, as if he is here questioning his identity and mission. It his [sic. is] deliberate and agonizing identification with the suffering poet of Psalm 22 and therefore, with all those who have cried out to God ‘Why?’. There on the cross, so the Bible insists, God intentionally enters our pain and misery, getting his hands dirty and even bloody. This is God at his most vulnerable and yet at his most glorious.

- John Dickson, If I were God I’d end all the pain (2nd ed. Matthias Media, 2002) p.66.

Jesus chose the way of suffering, so that he could understand our pain.

For we do not have a high pries who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have on who has been tempted [tested] in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

- Heb. 4:15-16

A cause for hope

Hard as it might seem to believe, God also permits suffering in order to bring us hope. James, the brother of Jesus, puts it this way:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

- James 1:2-4

So, in other words, trials of many kinds help us develop perseverance, which is required for us to be “mature and complete.” Paul fleshes this out a bit more in his letter to the Romans:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

- Romans 5:1-5

The hope, then, is this: through our sufferings, God is making us more and more like his Son every day, in accordance with his will (Rom 8:29). And because of this, we have a hope that is eternal:

Praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this we greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

- 1 Peter 1:3-7

My prayer, then, for me and for you, is the same one that James recommends:

If any of you lacks wisdom [to be able to rejoice when facing trials; see v. 2], he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

- James 1:5-6

One of the hardest questions to deal with in life runs something like this: Why is there (so much) suffering in the world? Each of the major religions has something to say in response to this question. In this article, I will attempt to capture the kernel of each of these responses for Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and (not a religion, but still worthwhile considering) atheism.

Hinduism: Suffering brings balance

Most of us will have come across the concept of ‘karma’, the universal principle by which all events in the past balance out with present and future events. This balance spans not only your life, but all of your past and future lives (i.e. incarnations). When you die, according to a Hindu, you will continue being reincarnated until your personal karma allows you to escape physical existence altogether and reach a state of nirvana.

As a result, a devout Hindu encountering a person suffering from disease, illness or poverty will consider it to be ‘payback’ (to put it crudely) for that person’s actions, either in this life or in a previous one. Similarly, a child who dies at birth was obviously wicked or cruel or unjust in a previous life. Which is not to say that Hindu people are any less compassionate or humane than their counterparts who subscribe to other world views; rather this is how, philosophically speaking, a devout Hindu would explain the presence of suffering.

The solution offered is to seek to improve your karma, until such time as you are able to achieve nirvana.

On the one hand this is a brilliant explanation: it is intellectually satisfying and all but impossible to gainsay. On the other, however, such a world-view leaves little room for consolation. Granted, Hinduism emerged well before our therapeutically intensive society, and so does not share what John Dickson calls our “modern Western fixation with consolation,” (John Dickson, If I were God I’d end all the pain [Matthias Media, 2001] p. 21) this remains cold comfort to those suffering under oppression, persecution, poverty, illness or grief.

Buddhism: Suffering is an illusion

Buddhism arose in direct response to the problem of suffering. Sometime around 500BC a man named Siddhartha Gautama, the Prince of a regions near the present-day borders of Nepal and India, left his palace and stumbled across 3 examples of human misery on his doorstep: a man withered by age; a man incapacitated by illness; and finally a dead body. On returning to his palace he decided to devote the rest of his life to understanding the problem of human suffering.

After searching diligently for 7 years, lived in self-denial and asceticism, he still did not have any answers. According to legend he vowed to meditate day and night under a Bo Tree until he had gained the insight he sought. One night, under a full moon in the month of May, Siddhartha found what he was looking for: all pain is an illusion through which we must train ourselves to see. According to Gautama (known to later generations as the ‘Buddha’ or Enlightened One, in honour of this insight) suffering is directly related to our desires and affections for the things of this world. Thus the pain of losing a loved one is caused not by the loss itself but by the affection I feel towards my parent, spouse, child or friend. If I lose my job, my anguish is brought about by my desire to be employed. If I desire intimacy then being single will bring anguish.

To overcome suffering, therefore, you must follow the Buddha’s eightfold path in order to purge yourself of all desires and affections.

There is little doubt in my mind that the Buddha’s solution is an insightful one: who can argue that our experience of suffering is unrelated to our desires. But does this ‘solution’ provide us a way forward? Is it possible to live this way, to isolate myself of all desire and affection? What kind of life will I be left with?

Islam: Suffering is the will of Allah

Unlike Buddhism, Islam deals with questions of suffering only peripherally. Nevertheless the Muslim position is clear: all events in history, from the least to the greatest, occur according to the will of Allah. The word Islam translates as ‘submission’ (to Allah’s will) and the word Muslim translates ‘one who submits’. Suffering becomes an opportunity for the devout Muslim to ‘submit’ to Allah’s will; to do otherwise, to cry out ‘Why God?’, is to presume to question the Almighty, and therefore all but blasphemy.

Thus, all that happens in this world – good or bad – is attributed to Allah: a young woman dies of cancer; chemists develop a life-saving drug; a family breadwinner dies of AIDS, plunging their family into poverty; a couple get married; a child is born with a heart problem… all these things are according to Allah’s will.

Perhaps of more importance, however, is Allah’s reaction to all of these things: none. According to standard Muslim theology, Allah is the ‘unmoved mover’. He causes all things to happen, but is impacted by none of them.

The Muslim solution, then, is to train yourself to submit to the will of Allah.

Atheism: Suffering is natural

For an atheist, the question “why does God allow suffering?” is meaningless as God does not exist. Instead, suffering is purely according to chance, and is the outworking of the interplay between our actions and the laws that govern the universe.

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and we won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good; nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

- Richard Dawkins, “The Evolution of the Darwin Man”, published during 2000 in The Sydney Morning Herald and cited in John Dickson, If I were God I’d end all the pain, (Matthias Media, 2002) p. 29.

There is no point searching for meaning or purpose in life, because there is none to be found. That’s just the way things have always been and will always be. There is no solution to be found.

So, we have now looked at 4 of the main approaches to understanding suffering in the world today. Next time, we will look at how Christians understand both the problem, and its solution.