I know many Christians who are totally convinced that the Church grows through suffering, but I have never met anyone who has prayed for an extended torture session.
Clearly, God works powerfully through our suffering and extreme pressures (Romans 5:3; 2 Corinthians 1:5; 12:7-10; Philippians 3:10). Perhaps C.S. Lewis was right: pain, he said, is God’s megaphone to attract our attention.
Yet suffering remains one of the unfathomable things about God. All suffering is hard to live with, but ironically, it can be harder for Christians who believe in a benevolent and powerful God. It hurts more because God appears to suspend his sovereignty at our expense. Whatever the suffering, God is amazingly patient with our complaints. Job was angry (Job 7:11) and Jeremiah accused God of deception (Jeremiah 20:7).
With hindsight, we know that God has always loved us (John 3:16) but in the aftermath of the Fall, the first evidence is the infliction of pervasive pain (Genesis 3:16-19).
Most of us end up asking, 'Why do bad things happen to good people'?
We are therefore caught between the contradiction of a God who has either allowed or induced suffering on one hand, while expressing hatred for it on the other (Exodus 3:1-14). God the initiator turns out to be God the deliverer. So most of us end up asking, ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’
And ‘bad things’ do happen: a tree falling in a playground killing a three year old child, a tragic road accident, or a flood wiping away whole communities. Across the world, extreme poverty has over one billion faces.
Today millions of people are imprisoned and tortured for what they believe. Over 70% of the world’s population experiences suffering because of their religious beliefs – not all of them Christians. And it is precisely in this shared humanity of suffering that Christians are called to do good to everyone – especially those who ‘belong to the family of believers’ (Galatians 6:10).
Even in the worst case scenarios, we are called to believe that the sovereign God who will ultimately wipe away all tears (Revelation 21:4) has already begun that work of freedom (Exodus 3:17; Job 36:15) and is recruiting us as liberating agents who pray, protest and provide for everyone who suffers.
Reverend Joel Edwards
Joel is the Strategic Advisor at CSW. He is a former director of the Evangelical Alliance, an advisory member on faith at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, and is currently studying for a PhD.