Comments on: Thomas Merton on Suffering

By: Lynn Buckles

Lynn Buckles — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:23:10 +0000

David,
I think Merton is right. I once heard Larry Crabb say that American Christians are essentially Buddhists when it comes to a perspective on suffering. We seem to try so hard to deny or avoid at all cost pain and suffering.

My dad had major stroke two years ago and was recently diagnosed with cancer. While this has been very devastating to our family I would have to admit that God has used this suffering in a redeemptive way. Personally, it has brought my dad and I closer together emotionally. We are having conversations now that I would have never imagined before.

Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle with all of this and at times I am overwhelmed by grief as I realize that my dad will never be the same (at least not in this life). This experience raises questions for me about life and the role of suffering but I am learning to rest in the presence of God with my questions. I still want to avoid this issue but in reality I know I cannot. So I find myself in that “in between” place of both embracing and running from suffering.

Ultimately, I am hanging on to Paul’s wonderful words in Romans 8: “nothing can separate us from the love of God”.

By: David Davis

David Davis — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 14:40:58 +0000

Chapter 5 of “Death by Suburb” addresses this issue quite well I think. When I think about the suffering I see, at church, in the community, in the media- I try to rationalize that the suffering I see is opportunity under cover. People have a choice in suffering just like choice exists is much that we do. There is a choice to turn to the one who suffered much for us, or turn within and hate God and all around us. Then I ask myself, would I be able to lean into God in the face of suffering? The truth is, I hope so, but I’ve never truly be challenged is this regard, truly challenged. Would I allow God’s grace to be sufficient for me? I have seen a young teenager at our church, who is slowly dying from Nieman-Pick Disease, become a beacon for Christ to all who come in contact with her. Could I be that kind of warrior for Christ?
The answer is always the Cross. The Cross where Jesus suffered and died, and the cross we must bear.

By: Debbie Nicodem Carsten

Debbie Nicodem Carsten — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 20:55:30 +0000

Maybe it’s true that smaller and smaller things begin to threaten us if we’re afraid of suffering. But in my experience, I was the thing that got smaller and smaller. For 20 years I chose to constantly adjust and adapt to my husband rather than suffer confronting the difficult realites in my marriage. By the end of my marriage, I was convinced I was incompentent and unworthy of love. I would have never chosen divorce, the frightening uncertainty, the agony of having my family torn apart, the crushing questions I had about God, but God used it to restore my dignity, as unbelievable as that may seem. I now have a book to encourage other women going through the same thing.

Too often women choose to suffer (to make others happy)and in the process lose their personhood. When that happens, Satan has crippled the impact they could have had and made them question their dignity. I don’t believe that’s God’s plan.

By: Tom Ekin

Tom Ekin — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:01:58 +0000

I wonder if the strongest people we know who have suffered greatly are strong because of their suffering. I can’t imagine the pain of the loss of a child. When a newscaster was interviewing Malibu, CA homeowners whose homes were sliding down to the Pacific one interviewee said “This is nothing – I loss my daughter last year”. On the other side of the coin there are too many people who don’t get stronger. Some say – “that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” but I know people who are really not alive because of their suffering.

For me suffering (just or unjust) helps to put things into perspective. I have suffered the consequences of workaholism. I could put my wife, children, family, friends, neighbors, etc. into a compartment but not work. Work was always there somewhere in my mind. Whether my mind was dulled by alcohol or energized by CoQ10 it was not on what the Lord wanted. Without suffering I think I am in control. Well, I have got to get back to work.

By: Lori

Lori — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:23:34 +0000

Some of the strongest people I know have suffered greatly, and some of the most pathetic people I know have suffered little. Why are we, as a society, condtioned to believe that if we do good we will face no evil? The scriptures clearly tell us that the rain will fall on the just and the unjust. Why do we believe, otherwise, that we can guarantee a “good” life just by doing good?

I know I have hit rock bottom when I find myself complaining about all the groceries I must carry to my car and put away when I get home. I know I have lost any concept of thanksgiving when I complain that I must take my kids to three different activities in one afternoon. I know I have lost all sense of a meaningful life when I get mad because someone gets on my machine at the gym. True suffering has nothing to do with our selfish desires.

I think that to love is to suffer and to suffer is to love. They are a package deal whenever we are truly committed to one another, to God, and to his great commandment.

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:00:58 +0000

I wish I could think of a more “wordy” response. I just think it’s a more simple question.

My questions is : How do we know we have a stake in the game without the suffering?? Isn’t that the idea anyway?

Or did I miss the part of the Bible that reads “You will live a completely blissful life as long as you are born in the upper middle class suburbs of The United States of America”.

God doesn’t love me more and want me to be more comfortable because of my geographic location. He wants me to lean on him. Period.

By: Paul O. Bischoff

Paul O. Bischoff — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 02:42:26 +0000

Evangelicals have been able to manage living a compartmentalized life since the movement began. The most tangible exression of such dualism involves the all-too-familiar Sunday-nonSunday [read "sacred-secular"] approach to life which has been around a long time. But evangelicals, especially in the suburbs have achieved an even more recently bolder approach by compartmentalizing Sundays into “contemporary” and “traditional” liturgies, which equate to compartmentalized churches. After all, why shouldn’t personal consumerism be given every chance to segment local church communities and continue severing the Body of Christ. Segmenting one’s life along the denial and secrecy of a “managed-over-time” affair would seem to fall right into place among professing Christians whose marriages end in separation/divorce at the same rate as persons who don’t profess to have Jesus as Savior, or is it Jesus as Lord?..might this itself not be the ultimate compartmentalization—an avoidance behavior which replaces participating in the sufferings of a crucified Christ. Suburban evangelicals would rather avoid suffering at all costs maintaining religious appearances complete with Sunday church faces on while their lives are going to hell. Avoidance only works for a while ….in the words of our SouthSide friends, denial is not a river in Egypt. The assurance that God will be presnet in my darkest and most lonely moment is validated by the fact that God was present with Jesus while simultaneously forsaking Jesus as HIs son—a paradox and irony which outweighs any pain I’m going through at this, or any moment.

Paul Bischoff

By: Irene

Irene — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:55:45 +0000

I don’t belive that God wants to see us suffering.
The way I see it God wantes to open our eyes and making us realize that we can not take everything for granted.

I’ve had a lot of suffering in my life.

By: Administrator

Administrator — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:36:00 +0000

A terrible tragedy that Jim mentions… Unimaginable.

However, I’m not as willing as he is to make as big a distinction between the suffering we create and other forms of suffering. That seems to smack of self-righteousness. We list the sins that we are currently not dealing with (or that no one can see at the moment) and then trumpet the sanctified life and its blessings.

And I suspect that God uses “consequence suffering” just as much to deepen us as God does other forms of suffering.

By: Connor

Connor — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:09:52 +0000

I agree with Jim. I I don’t suffer because I don’t have to. Suffering is for people that can’t get out of it.

I am just beginning to entertain the idea that if I used more of what I have in the service of God and other people then maybe I would get to a place where I could learn about suffering through experience rather than through a book.

I think of it the same way that I think about faith. We should be living life close enough to the edge that faith is a necessity. I should be living close enough to the edge that suffering just happens and those are the times when I would really and truly get to know my savior.