The reason for suffering. That’s what we all want to know. In Chapter 8 of Walking with God through Pain and Suffering Timothy Keller unveils it.
“According to Christian theology, suffering is not meaningless—neither in general nor in particular instances. For God has proposed to defeat evil so exhaustively on the cross that all the ravages of evil will someday be undone and we, despite participating in it so deeply, will be saved . . . it is through the suffering of God that the suffering of humankind will eventually be overcome and undone” (p. 163).
ON NOT WASTING YOUR SUFFERING
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt claims “people need adversity, setbacks and perhaps even trauma to reach the highest levels of strength, fulfillment and personal development” (p. 164).
That’s all well and good. But, when we’re suffering we’re hardly concerned about personal development! That’s one reason the Bible shows us many of the afflicted crying, “Why, Lord?” How does he answer?
TO GLORIFY GOD
This is our ultimate life’s purpose. If we respond the right way to our sufferings, even they can glorify God. (How cruel that must sound to parents watching a child die from cancer.)
C.S. Lewis once questioned Scripture commands to glorify God. “We all despise the man who demands continued assurance of his own virtue, intelligence or delightfulness,” he wrote (p. 167). But eventually Lewis realized we find our peace and joy when we glorify God, because it is “fitting . . . to praise him” (Psalm 33:1). For then we are giving God what is appropriate and fulfilling our reason for being.
THE GOD OF GLORY
What is the glory of God? Keller defines it: the glory of God is “the combined magnitude of all God’s attributes and qualities put together”—that is, “his infinite beyondness” (p. 168).
It’s also “his supreme importance.” Kabad, the Hebrew word for “glory”, means “weight.” God is “weighty.” God matters. Nothing should matter more to us than him.
God’s glory is also his “absolute beauty and splendor.” The New Testament Greek word for glory, doxa, means “praise and wonder; luminosity, brilliance, or beauty” (p. 169). We don’t glorify God by obeying him because we have to, but because we’re attracted to him and have learned to delight in him.
NO GRAVEN IMAGE
How, then, can we glorify God in suffering?
By trusting in his wisdom, even when we don’t understand.
How prone we are to see God as the One who follows our plans, who supports us, who acts as we want him to! That God is our creation, an idol, a graven image. But God as he is, as the God we can’t understand, we’re aghast when asked to trust him.
But that’s how in suffering we glorify him–“by simply treating him as the infinite, sovereign, all-wise, and yet incarnate and suffering God that he is” (Keller, p. 174).
GLORIFYING GOD TO OTHERS
When others know we are Christians, our patient endurance of suffering can reveal to them God’s power. Christian writers after the first century like Ambrose, Cyprian, Ignatius and Polycarp repeatedly said, “Christians died so well, leaving onlookers wondering where they got their power” (p. 176). Paul wrote from imprisonment, “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ” (Philippians 1:12,13).
October 2006. A gunman takes hostages in a one-room school in a Lancaster, Pennsylvania Amish community. He shoots ten aged seven through thirteen. Five die. Then he kills himself. The Amish supports his parents, his young widow and three children. They attend the killers’ funeral.
Their testimony was so powerful many muted it. A made-for-TV movie had the mother of one murdered child doubt God, explode in anger at him and almost lose her faith. The Amish, to a person, denied that anyone had their faith shaken or refused to forgive.
Years later, a group of sociologists published a book and concluded, “forgiveness is a form of self-renunciation—it means giving up your right to pay back . . . this is directly opposed to how Americans are taught to live.” And, “Most of us have been formed by a culture that nourishes revenge and mocks grace” (p. 177). That’s why our peace and love in suffering so powerfully bear witness of Jesus who renounced himself and died for us.
GLORIFYING GOD WHEN NO ONE SEES
Joni Earekson Tada has been paralyzed from the neck down since her teenage years, the result of a diving accident. Through books and speaking engagements, Joni has been able to use her condition as a platform to glorify God.
But Joni wondered about Denise, who she came to know from a hospital stay. Denise was seventeen years old when she was stricken with multiple sclerosis. Eight long years later, she died. But few people knew about her. To Joni, Denise’s suffering seemed for nothing.
Then she read Luke15:10 about the angels rejoicing over one repentant sinner. And Ephesians 3:10 about angels seeing what happens in the church. And she knew: “Someone was watching [Denise] in that lonely hospital room—a great many someones” (p. 179).
SUFFERING AND GLORY
“Suffering glorifes God to the universe and eventually even achieves glory for us” (Keller, p. 180).
And we must remember that “Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you: . . .being cast away from God. He took that so that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great” (Keller, p. 180,181).
Why, then,suffering? For God’s glory and our ultimate good.
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