In her book, Suffering Is Never for Nothing, Elisabeth Elliot writes:
“There have been hard things in my life, of course, as there have been in yours, and I cannot say to you, I know exactly what you’re going through.
But I can say that I know the One who knows.”
By the way, this has always seemed to me the simplest and best answer to the suffering question – “I don’t know why, but I do know that God is good.”
Some Christians try to call suffering a way for God to grow us.
Sometimes, maybe. But certainly not always.
Job’s suffering was part of a cosmic dispute. He was probably the most “grown” Christian in the world at the time.
Further, we live in a fallen world where people suffer. That’s baked into the cake and every single experience we have with that cake.
If someone says God is bringing suffering to “grow you,” that’s not only cruel or theologically dubious. It’s outright blasphemy because you are speaking for God.
Now, of course, we can grow during our suffering, but it’s blasphemous to attribute our suffering to God’s plan for our growth when we have no idea why he did it.
Job’s friends tried that route, and God rebuked them severely for trying to divine his divine message.
Other Christians will say suffering is a way for God to discipline us.
Sometimes, but it seems extremely rare.
Why?
A few reasons.
First, how often did Jesus correct his disciples through making them suffer?
He rebukes those guys left and right for their daily sins, and yet he never inflicts sudden, painful suffering on them for it.
And if anyone needed to grow spiritually, it was the ones who’d soon be carrying his message to the rest of the world.
Yet there’s not a single record of Jesus inflicting suffering on his disciples as a way of “growing them.”
Second, if God used suffering as his primary means of our growth and discipline, we’d be suffered right out of existence by the week’s end.
He’s just not that kind of Father. He’s a good one. Not an abusive one, who makes us suffer every time we sin. Again, our lives would be relentless suffering if that were the case, because we sin every day.
Of course, there are loads of other, common reasons Christians give for suffering, but none really answers the question adequately which is why there are new books written constantly on the issue.
We can appreciate reading them, but deep in our hearts, we still don’t quite understand suffering, do we?
And we have to accept that’s okay.
There are a million things we don’t understand about the universe and human life itself, that we can’t explain, that we admit are beyond our scope.
Why would the enormous complexity of suffering be any different?
That’s why I like that quote from Elliot so much.
Even though she unfortunately looks for reasons in the rest of her book, I think it’s dangerous to look for reasons in our own lives.
Why God brings suffering, in each particular case? That’s unknowable.
Jesus himself says God makes his rain to fall on the just and unjust, which speaks to the mystery of suffering and the fact the answer is reserved for God.
But note that — the answer is reserved for God.
If we believe that God is loving, our Father, then the answer is safe in his hands.
Having said all that, if you’re suffering from depression, there’s help for that suffering!
Depression and other mental health conditions are medical, and a type of suffering that is, thus, best treated medically. However that looks.
And for some good ideas…
Find a psychiatrist here.
Find a therapist here.
