Hello. This morning we went to church, and the sermon was about suffering. One of the things that stayed with me was the idea that suffering brings pain, but that pain should not be wasted. That is not an easy thought to sit with. When we are hurting, we want the hurt to stop. It can be difficult to think about what we might learn or how we might grow while we are still trying to get through it.
This Sunday’s sermon is part of a series called “Line in the Sand.” The question behind it is: What makes you draw a line in the sand and refuse to move closer to God? What becomes the thing that stops you from going any further in your faith?
I think of that line as a wall we put up. There is something we cannot understand or accept, and it becomes a reason to keep our distance from God. Suffering can be one of those things. When we are going through something painful, we ask God why. Why is this happening? Why are we having to go through it? Those questions are hard to answer, but the experience can also shape who we become.
The fourth Sunday of the series, “Other Topics,” covered sexuality and hypocrisy. These, too, can become reasons people move away from God. They are not necessarily easy things to talk about, but they belong in a series about the barriers between us and faith.
There are still two more parts of the series to be discussed next Sunday. I think the topics are misogyny and hell, so I am interested to hear what will be said. They seem like subjects that could bring up more difficult questions about what we believe and what keeps us from drawing closer to God.
Life puts us in many different circumstances, but does that mean all of them come from God? The distinction I am thinking about is that God allows suffering, but it does not come from Him. Even with that distinction, there is still a lot to wrestle with. Allowing something and causing it are not the same, but when we are in pain, we may still struggle to understand why it is being allowed at all.
I think suffering can make us more reliant on God, especially when we stop trying to carry everything on our own. Perhaps that is part of what it means not to waste the pain: that even in something we would never have chosen, we can learn to lean on Him rather than turn away.
But I am still left with the question. If God can end suffering with a snap of His fingers, why does He allow it to continue?