why does God allow suffering?

The Keys to the Kingdom: A Gentle But Firm Correction to ...

Jesus and His disciples

We spent the day this weekend watching three episodes of The Chosen, Season 4.. Why not? It gives us some quality time with Jesus, and we appreciate that very much.

But when all is said and done, The Chosen is a “Bible movie,” which means the screenwriters will add some things that aren’t in the gospels. That makes me fidgety.

Without committing a spoiler, I must still say that I object to a scene we saw yesterday. If this incident really happened, it should have been mentioned in the Scripture. But I feel certain that it was invented by the writers to make a point.

Later on, when Jesus and His disciples visit their friend Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, in Bethany, we are given a hint that Lazarus has already been touched by the illness that will take his life; and Jesus see this, but says nothing about it. We know from the Gospel that Lazarus dies, his body is entombed–and Jesus raises him from the dead.

It’s not that the earlier incident I’ve alluded to fails to raise an important point. It doesn’t. I understand why the writers invented and included it. But even so, viewers who are not familiar with the Bible may not know that this was an invented incident: it didn’t happen. I think the writers should have found some other way to make their point.

It’s not just me being picky, is it? Shouldn’t the Bible, as written, be sufficient for our needs? We are committed to the proposition that the Bible tells the truth. Saying something happened, when it didn’t, makes me uneasy.

I hope I hear more about this from some of you. Again, I have not described the incident in question because I don’t want to influence your perception of it.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory: while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. –2 Corinthians 4:17-18

There’s no doubt about it: God tests us mighty hard sometimes. Hard enough to make us wonder what it’s all about. Maybe even hard enough to make us question our faith, and tempt us to abandon it.

We do prayer requests on this blog, so we know that many of us struggle under burdens very hard to carry. And that’s putting it mildly.

But what St. Paul is saying here is not that these burdens are light, not that they don’t matter, not that our pain isn’t real. This is a man who, during his ministry, was stoned and left for dead, beaten several times, shipwrecked, and on top of all that, had to deal with churches whose congregations sometimes rebelled against him and rejected him.

So when he calls it “light affliction,” no small share of which he had himself, he means “light” by comparison with “an eternal weight of glory.” This is the knowledge that sustained him in his own afflictions. It would be good for us if we had that knowledge, too–and believe me, I’m not saying that I do.

Why does God test us so hard?

I think of how a Japanese sword is made. The swordsmith takes chips of iron and heats it and refines it into steel, and then, as it begins to acquire the shape of a blade, he heats it again and again, and bends it and folds it and hammers it, over and over again: heat red-hot, bend and fold, and hammer. If the metal had feelings, it would surely feel that! But the end result is a strong and supple sword with a razor-sharp edge, a prize sword that will last for hundreds of years.

Bend and fold, hammer. Bend and fold, hammer. I think this must be what God does to us. It hurts, it tempts us to despair: because, unlike Him, we can’t see the end product. It is one of those things that Paul called “the things which are not seen,” and which are… eternal.

We can only endure this by faith: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). For we are headed for eternal life, and glory.

A thing hard to remember, and hard to believe; but we have to remember it, and we must believe it. Probably the hardest lesson in all of Christianity.

And therefore central to our faith.