Why God Allows Suffering? (13)

How Good Can Come From Suffering

We will all suffer at some time. While it is never pleasant, both history and the Bible show that suffering can, in the end, produce good.

Keeping this in mind can help us better learn to deal with suffering and accept it.

Sigmund Freud worked as a counselor to deliver people from psychological difficulties. Yet he was honest enough to admit that his ability to help was limited. He confessed that he "cured the miseries of the neurotic only to open him up to the normal misery of life" (Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, 1973, p. 271). Freud was right: There is no such thing as a trouble-free life.

Since we cannot avoid all suffering, we must keep in mind that it can and often does produce good results. It's easier to endure suffering and pain when we view them as challenges than when we think of them as unbearable curses.

It has traditionally been a tenet of Western culture, and rightly so, that some difficulties are beneficial in that they can help us mature and become better people. However, author Richard Kyle reminds us that much of Europe, Britain and the United States has entered the post -Christian era, in which "Christianity is no longer the definer of cultural values" (The Last Days Are Here Again, 1998, p. 25).

The post-Christian mind-set rejects the traditional biblical view that hardship and pain—though unpleasant and undesired—can work to ultimate good. Expressions such as "By standing firm you will gain life" (Luke:21:19, NIV) and "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts:14:22, NIV), though true, are no longer widely accepted.

The Bible plainly teaches that adversity can produce beneficial results. Even though Christ was the Son of God, He, too, "learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him" (Hebrews:5:8-9
). Even secular history provides many examples of individuals and nations that, under conditions of duress, overcame difficult circumstances to achieve greatness. Sometimes one determined individual has provided the spark needed for nations to endure hard times and achieve praiseworthy objectives.

A prime minister powerfully serves his country

Sir John Keegan observed this to be true with Winston Churchill and Britain in World War II. In 1940, during the darkest days of the conflict, Churchill stood valiantly to rally the beleaguered British people. "In a series of magnificent speeches, appealing to his people's courage and historic greatness, he carried Britain with him." Through his powerful words, he imposed his "will and imagination on his countrymen" ( U.S. News and World Report,May 29, 2000).

Stiffened by their prime minister's resolve, Britons withstood a horrific pounding by Hitler's bombers in the Battle of Britain and turned a time of trial and impending defeat into triumph in what Churchill called his country's "finest hour."

Keegan writes that the British, under the threat of invasion, "wholly exemplified how a finest hour should be lived. They dug the dead and the living from the rubble, manned their beaches [and] tightened their belts" (ibid.).

In The Lessons of History, Will and Ariel Durant observed that "a challenge successfully met ... raises the temper and level of a nation, and makes it abler to meet further challenges" (1968, p. 91).

The British experience demonstrates the necessity of pulling together and supporting each other during adversity. Dr. Paul Brand tells how he prepares for the worst: "The best single thing I can do to prepare for pain is to surround myself with a loving community who will stand beside me when tragedy strikes" (Brand and Yancey, p. 236). He notes that "suffering is only intolerable when nobody cares" (p. 257).

God reveals that suffering carries with it a noble purpose: It should help us to grow in brotherly love. "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ," writes Paul (Galatians:6:2).

When our concern flows out toward others, suffering, as undesirable and painful as it is, can be a profitable experience. We learn the reality that "no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews:12:11, NIV).

To be cont'd.

Have a blessed day.