Are you suffering?

Are you suffering? Have you wondered why God allows suffering?

I had to write a couple of hundred words for a newspaper article when I suddenly became ill and was urged to go straight to A&E. My pain was considerable: I gave it 7 out of 10. I was received, diagnosed and treated through a sleepless night. I ended up composing my article on a hospital bed.

Later, getting better, I was reading a book in which a one-time atheist, now Christian apologist, answers the question, “If God, why suffering?” He argues that God whose wisdom is infinite must have good reasons for allowing bad things to happen. After all, his wisdom is evident in creating the universe with its fine tuning and beauty. It’s rather that our minds are too small to grasp totally the profound reasons that are in the mind of God. It’s not for us believers, the author says, to furnish our atheist friends with all God’s possible answers for allowing evil: rather it’s for the atheist to show that such reasons can’t exist. 

My suffering has allowed me time in hospital to think about the big issues of life and death. I have enjoyed the kindness of nurses, the love of visitors and the specialist help of doctors. I’ve had time to read the Bible, pray and write these thoughts. And I have renewed my trust that God knows what he is doing when in his loving providence he lets me experience suffering.

Clive Every-Clayton