Theology Blog

“Everyone should be warned: ‘Give your life utterly to Christ and you will eventually suffer much more than you can now comprehend.’ But there is no way a man can communicate to daring young Christians the amount of suffering they will encounter in one lifetime.”

Suffering is one of those realities of life that we would much rather avoid. One of the great tragedies in our world today as it relates to suffering is that we do not have an adequate theology of suffering. It is much easier to simply avoid suffering, blame God for suffering, assume suffering is a punishment, make an assumption that Christians should suffer less or assume a variety of other narcissistic responses than it is to really wrestle with suffering theologically. We would much rather be an Easter people than a Good Friday people. Its true that we have victory in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but that victory can only be seen in light of the cross. Suffering is a reality and its not a reality that we can fully be prepared for. We do not have to enjoy suffering, but we do have to wrestle with it. Following Christ means that we have chosen to embrace suffering, not avoid it, yet even the disciples who traveled with Jesus and lived out His story could never fully comprehend what that means.