Suffering is a physical and spiritual problem for mankind. It is attacked on the physical/intellectual level with vigor by society. The time and fortune dedicated to the research of illness, physical, psychological, social, even spiritual are virtually impossible to calculate. The economies of advanced nations are highly dependent upon this massive use of human time resources to treat the health of persons, nature, society, government, economies, and institutions. Everything appears subject to some mind of illness, troublesome to greater or lesser degrees, defined in the context in which they function. So prevalent is suffering that it has become a theme of many humanists, that if there is a God, he doesn’t appear to offer adequate relief, or in the reality of suffering may prove that he does not exist, in that, if he existed he would not permit suffering. The arguments relate especially in the suffering of children in physical illnesses, in adult abuse, even in the treatment of children by children (bullying). A careful experiment was followed showing that some children will, without instruction but having resources to help or hurt a fellow child will as readily bully the child as assist in the context of the experiment. The concern about suffering has led to numerous books and articles on the subject, including conferences, both secular and Christian, related to the issues. From one institution where I served on the faculty for some years, Joni Eareckson Tada was a lecturer in 2013. She stated: The church is having a tough time with grasping the role suffering plays in the development of Christian character. We hate suffering. We want to eradicate it, medicate it, drug it, exorcise it. We want to institutionalize it, divorce it – do everything but live with it. And yet this is God’s choicest tool for refining our faith and pushing us into the arms of our Savior. So when I look at the church today, I see that often . . . we are being affected by a future of comfort and convenience . . . . we need a world view on disability. Philip Yancey wrote earlier in similar vein. He followed in the wake of C. S. Lewis.
Analysts who lay responsibility to God for the source of suffering apparently have God’s support. He does not shy away from suffering that serves the focus of meaning in the cultivation of mankind for purpose. I recall an early experience I was afforded in a homiletics assignment. I had not long been a Christian, and was hurrying myself along to catch up on the nurture I should have had as a child through transitions to maturity. Suffering was on my mind, and I took considerable time choosing a text for class, even memorizing it so as to be careful about sensing the nuances of what the text was communicating. I chose Exodus 4:10-16 for my text and have never gotten over the generous critique, noted afterwards by the professor. More than seventy years later I continue to remember the text and its meaning to me that carried through various suffering periods of life. Moses, worried about the suffering of public speaking (public speaking is perceived the greatest fear expressed by persons in studies, higher than death for some, which ranks number two in the listing of fears and suffering). The fear of his life meant that two persons would be needed to do what Moses might have done on his own. His brother, Aaron, was ordained to work as his associate. On occasion that also introduced suffering, when Aaron missed the proper cooperation and conduct in the temporary absence of Moses.
It is likely that without suffering men and women would be insufferable. (No pun intended.) We are humbled by suffering – forced to dependence on each other (necessary for survival, civility, and mutuality). For the devout it is a means for gaining experience of dependence that leads to the understanding what the divine relationship means in what God desires from us. The human being needs suffering for meaning relating to life, even immortality. The sufferings of Christ were permitted that we might learn that there is meaning to the matter sometimes breaking through the barriers that divide us from each other and from God. All suffering is identified in the suffering of Jesus Christ out of which emerges the great event in the existence of mankind – the redemptive experience that is the hope (immortality) of Scripture. Christians are represented as sharing the sufferings of Christ for mortal meaning to life. Life suffering and death is a part of the equation of total nature. It is a teaching factor related to spiritual life. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020