On Suffering

I recently read the second chapter of the book “Suffering and the Supremacy of God”. It is a collection of seminars given at the 2005 Desiring God conference. I specifically gained a great amount of strength from the second chapter of this book which opens up with the memoir of Elie Wiesel describing his time in a German concentration camp and how this destroyed his faith. Mark Talbot quoted Wiesel as follows:

In the beginning there was faith—which was childish; trust—which is vain; and illusion—which is dangerous. We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekhinah’s flame; that every one of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God’s image.

I believe so many of us live with this understanding of God and man. We do not understand the quite dominate sense of sins ultimate destruction path. Even in men who try to pursue the Lord with all their might. Sin is a force with devastating effects for those that give it cause.

I believed that I could avoid the affects of sin if I simply lived a good life. Don’t get me wrong I believed that God would still make life “hard” and “difficult”, but I would avoid the “majors” (infertility, cancer, deep betrayal). I believed that these would fall to the wayside for me and mine because I was doing “it” right.

Instead in this chapter Mark Talbot turns us towards the idea that we have to embrace the truth that God created evil and uses evil for his purposes. We cannot accept anything less from a God we consider sovereign. When I read that part I stopped and needed a break. That hurt. However, it is starting to give me peace. I feel the transition in my heart. If you would like to read this article the book is online and you can go to it here. Look for Chapter 2.