The Thing with Suffering

Spirituality Column #240
June 14, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Thing with Suffering
By Bob Walters

It was a brief conversation with my dear friend Mike about our mutually dear friend Bill. Mike and I were alone outside Bill’s house after a visit, each of us fighting back tears.

Bill has brain cancer, the really, really hard kind. He and his wife, both deep and mature believers in Christ, are bravely battling the disease. Their grace is wonderful to behold; the effects of the disease are horrifying.

Mike, not a church-goer but deeply imbued with sincere human compassion, said, “I just don’t want to see anyone suffer.”

“Suffering is part of the deal,” I told Mike, quietly, referring to a life in Christ. I added, approximately, “It’s as clear as anything the Bible says. Our faith in Christ and belief in God are tested and purified in our suffering. It doesn’t glorify God to ‘believe’ when times are good. As crazy as it sounds, suffering – and keeping our faith as we suffer – is the greatest earthly way to glorify God.”

Mike and I blinked back tears one more time, and left. I pray my words sank in.

Bill and his wife are glorifying God in their suffering by keeping their faith. We who despair with them must also glorify God by trusting His ultimate mercy.

“Suffering Glorifies God!” is a slogan seldom seen on church signboards. No, marketing the Christian faith today focuses largely on “me.” God loves and forgives me. Or we scrutinize my sin and guilt, or God solving my problems, or having Jesus see things my way. “Please Lord,” we pray, “give me what I want.” We want God to ease our suffering, not be glorified by it.

Jesus prayed, “Father … not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Jesus told His disciples repeatedly that to follow Him they must value God above everything else, including their families, their circumstances, their very lives. Jesus told them they would suffer and be persecuted for their faith, yet they would glorify God.

Suffering is among the Bible’s hardest teachings, one of its most obvious truths, and one of the last things the modern church “sells.” Suffering matters because it is the central lesson of Jesus on the cross, “that your son may glorify you” (John 17:1).

God’s purpose isn’t to make us suffer, but that we persevere in our faith when we suffer. Pray with Jesus that God’s will, not ours, be done.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) resists thinking of faith as a “coping” mechanism. Faith in Christ is a “truth and peace” mechanism. UPDATE: Bill passed peacefully, at home, on Dec. 28, 2011.

Clearing Up a Couple of Things

Spirituality Column #49
October 16, 2007
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Clearing Up a Couple of Things
By Bob Walters

A couple of thoughtful op-ed emails arrived recently from readers who kindly digest this column despite their fundamental disagreement with religion.

I deeply enjoy the comment and exchange; I always write back.

One reader thought I had called non-believers “lazy.” Not what I meant. I said (Oct. 2) that “Lazy faith creates … doubt and guilt.” It often takes as much work to not believe as it does to believe. Plenty of hard workers do not believe in God, and plenty of folks in church don’t do much else for God but attend church. Salvation is by faith, but the riches are in the work, whether earthly or divine.

This reader also challenged me to step out of my church and learn what non-religious people have to say. I already understand non-religious people because I was one for a long time. I went to church growing up (it seemed everyone went to church in the 50s and 60s) but then stepped away for nearly 30 years of my adult life – working to disprove Christ, religion, church – before I came to understand and accept Christ. What I found out was this: the big deal is Christ, not just church or religion.

Another reader said he has led a happy, fulfilled life without religion. I know lots of happy, hardworking people who want nothing to do with church. I can also quote Matthew 19:24 – “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Read that again if you think rich equals happy.

Funny thing about “happy.” Nowhere in the Bible does it say that “happy” is a fulfillment of anything. It’s a reaction to God’s gifts. Being happy within yourself is not unusual, but nothing in scripture leads me to think happiness is God’s or our purpose in life. You are free to be happy because of God, but happiness, in and of itself, is an emotion, not a virtue or a purpose.

Our purpose in life, simply, is to glorify God. Happy or miserable, that’s our purpose. Religious or not, that’s our purpose.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) understands that you can’t really “argue” faith into someone because you either “get it” or you don’t. But love is constant, and we’re supposed to talk about it.