Suffering and the Process of Undeception
I’ve been sharing on Facebook over the last couple of days, my struggle as I deal with the pain of an abscessed tooth. I’ll spare you the dental details, but I do have to confess, that every issue of severe pain (and I know this is relative, as the ladies who have undergone childbirth, laugh in the background) has always brought about for me a crisis of faith.
“Oh God, are you there? Do you even care about me?”
I am a little older (I was going to say “mature,” but remembered I was intending to have an honest discussion here.) and have been through a few things. I know that they eventually end. Or at least they have in my experience. I’ve also committed myself to the Christian way….the way of struggle…the way of the ascetic….the way of the Cross. Intellectually I have come to terms with suffering:
Christ suffered, and the servant is not greater than the Master.
He engineered our salvation through His torturous death on the cross.
He tells us that we too must take up OUR cross and follow Him, so that we participate in His resurrection through our participation in His suffering.
I understand that suffering entered the world due to Man’s sin. It is not God’s ultimate plan that we suffer….rather it’s a consequence of the exercise of our free will. And as all the world is connected, all bear the consequences for that…thus the innocents suffer with the rest of us.
I know all that. Yet, I sit in relative comfort in my cozy, convenient, lazy, ungrateful American life. Easy for me to say.
But then, I get a foretaste of my own death. Intense pain, that I do not know how to deal with. I leave the room, as the family adds to my annoyance. I think I want to be alone. But now my aloneness also annoys me. I go the medicine chest and try to doctor myself. I am in such a hurry that I dump pills all over the counter. I lay down. I get back up. I try to distract myself. I flee distractions. Finally, some sense of responsibility to not upset my family, I do leave the room and lay down on my bed. I begin to say the name of Jesus with each throb. I ask for deliverance, but realize my haste to escape may deprive me of the blessing that is underneath this. So I begin to try to give thanks. “Thank you for this. Forgive my ingratitude for the blessing of a painless life. Strengthen me. Help me.”
Can God release me from pain? Of course! What kind of God would He be if He couldn’t. Does He heal? Of course, He love mankind….what kind of Father would He be if not. Why would we worship such a God if He did not care about our suffering?
But physical healing is not the end all to end all. There is something much greater. That’s the healing of our soul. He endured pain and suffering to do so. Our healing ONLY comes from embracing the Cross.
I read recently in a book by Andrew Louth, from the University of Durham, Discerning the Mystery, about the role of suffering, in our ability to know God…to see Him. As a student at seminary, I read an awful lot of books about God. We do a lot of conversing about God, Who He is, what we know of Him. 
But God is not a concept that we can simply wrap our brains around. God is a person who must be “engaged.” And it is through experience, that we undergo the process of “undeception.” “For every experience worthy of the name runs contrary to our expectations.” Thus through suffering we enter the process by which we are “undeceived of our prejudices that do not ‘fit’ reality.”
According to Hans-Georg Gadamer, the point is that, “What a man has to learn through suffering is not this or that particular thing, but knowledge of the limitations of humanity, of the absoluteness of the barrier that separates him from the divine.” If Union with God is our goal, than suffering becomes a means to that end. God did not create us for suffering. Suffering comes about because of our sin. But Christ, transformed suffering by his own suffering.
It doesn’t make it easy, but at least we can know that our suffering can have “meaning.” Suffering is one thing. Meaningless suffering is despondancy. Trust God with all your heart, and make sure you suffer well.
bonovox
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saying a prayer for your tooth right now! lord have mercy--sorry you are in pain!
I am sorry you are hurting, and hope that you can find meaning and salvation through your suffering...
Kevin, I read your blog post and I must respond to it. You stated in your blog that you had come to terms with suffering.
Christ suffered, and the servant is not greater than the Master.
Yes Christ suffered, but it was to pay the penalty on our behalf and to set us free from the curse that came because of the fall of man. He came to restore everything that has been taken away from us because of sin. If the old covenant (Deut. 7:15 and Ex. 15:26) provided for health and healing, the scripture states that we have a better covenant. (Heb. 8:6) Once I have accepted His forgiveness for my sin, the curse has been broken over my life. It has to be worked out because of all the generational curses that have been passed on to me, along with all the false doctrine and teaching that I was subjected to, but gradually over a period of 25+ years I have been delivered from a lot of deception and the Holy Spirit is still revealing more to me each day. I no longer believe that a loving heavenly Father would impose pain and suffering on me just to teach me humility. If you treated your children that way , you would be arrested for child abuse. We do have to take up our cross daily in order to follow him which means that I have to die to my flesh, my will and my agenda and submit to His will. When He took up the cross it was dying to His will and being obedient to the Father….”Not my will but thine be done.” He paid the price. We must be willing to lay down our life for the sake of the gospel. He defeated sickness, death and poverty. Granted, there is still suffering and pain., The suffering that the men like Peter, John and Paul went through was because of their identification with Christ, not because of sickness. They suffered and died for the sake of Christ, but Jesus is teaching us how to take authority and dominion over every evil work of the enemy. He has given us everything we need that pertains to life and Godliness. (2 Pet. 1:3) I have come to understand that when He taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”, He was showing us that we are to be bringing His Kingdom into this earth. What is bound in Heaven is bound on earth. He is restoring His original plan and that is still the plan….. that we walk in dominion and authority over the earth and that we walk in constant communion with Him and that this earth be restored to the original plan. He wants to dwell among us and His Kingdom will be brought to earth through his people and all things will be restored. We are not of this world and we do not have to be under the curse and lies of the enemy. Jesus has given us everything we need to walk victoriously (John 10:10) and He has seated us in the heavenlies with Himself now(Eph. 2:6)……… not in the future. We are to be overcomers and yes we will face trials and problems, but we overcome them by the word of our testimony and the blood of the lamb. (Rev. 12:11) If we could pay the price through pain and suffering, why did He have to go through such a cruel and torturous death? We are trampling on the blood of Jesus Christ if we take it upon ourselves to be redeemed from the curse of the law of sin and death. We are insulting Him and it is pride that makes us think that we can do anything to save ourselves. It is a life of faith and all of His promises are sure..It is my prayer that all of us will have a greater revelation of Truth that is in Christ Jesus and that He will deliver us from deceptions of the world, the flesh and the devil.
Dear Mom,
Thank you for engaging me on this important subject. Suffering is a key concept, and is not leaving our planet anytime soon I am afraid.
In addressing you concerns, I have to make a few clarifications:
First, I in no way subscribe to any kind of idea that God would “impose pain and suffering” on me or anyone….whether its to punish, or to “teach them humility.” That totally is against the clear Christian teaching of our God being a “loving Heavenly Father.” (Although many use the Old Testament to try to prove that He isn’t.)
Also, I don’t believe that I in my self can “pay the price through pain and suffering.” That would be “works righteousness” and as you say, would call into question Christ’s redemptive suffering. Please be assured that we Orthodox believe that is only God’s grace that can redeem us through our participation in it. (but its in HOW we participate in it, that separates the East from the West.)
BUT, we CANNOT say that God does not ALLOW pain and suffering. The evidence being that there IS pain and suffering (I know not by a book, but by recent experience), and that He is SOVREIGN. To say otherwise is to deny that He is almighty. Theologians refer to this dilemma as “theodicy.”
SO, the sovereign all powerful, yet loving Heavenly Father allowed me to suffer. The question is “why?”
Is it because I am worthy of suffering? My sinfulness would betray to me that I am indeed worthy, of not only a toothache, but all the pain that I have inflicted on others in my life.
Is it because I don’t have enough faith? That I am pretty faithless is quite clear by the fact that if all I need is a mustard seed’s worth to move a mountain, I must not even have that much. So that could very well be it.
So perhaps it is that my faith will GROW that I am allowed to go through such. Certainly that has been the case when Colin got cancer. I wish that upon no parents, yet God saw fit to give us that cross. And through Colin’s illness and loss, God has done miracles in our family (as well as in him personally). It was my prayer for him that God would replace his physical vision with spiritual sight, and God has heard and answered my prayer. Certainly this event was key in my own life. It was there that I switched from worrying about whether I had the faith for God to heal him…to being concerned with whether I had the faith to deal with the possibility that God would NOT.
IN any event, while I do not run towards suffering, I struggle to embrace it. It is how we issue in the Kingdom of God, by learning to scorn illness and death. If the protomartyr (and protodeacon!)Stephen could embrace his suffering at the hands of his earthly enemies, how much more can we embrace our martyrdom at the hands of the demons (if we believe that illness is demonic, as I do). You can destroy my body, but my soul is untouchable. As the verse you quoted from revelation goes “by the word of their martyrdom.” (logon tis marturias).
Its precicesly by indentifying with Christ, that we transform our suffering as He did his, for our salvation and those around us. This is the way of the Cross, that no sickness or persecution can resist. This is participation (synergoi) in His free gift of grace. We cannot earn this grace, but the gift is useless if it lies under the tree unopend. Our "active faith" opens the gift.
Love you!
I always hit "send" to soon!
I also wanted to say that it is my conviction that it is thrgou our vountary suffering, that we can become an instrument of healing for others (in imitation of Christ). (Not that my suffering was voluntary, but I can at least strive to make my bearing of this "thorn in the flesh" joyful.)
St. Nektarios of Aegina (+1920) is an example of this:
On November 9, 1920, St. Nektarios retired his spirit to the Lord. However, even in death St. Nektarios continues to perform miracles, the first of which occurred in the very hospital room in which he died. With the passing of St. Nektarios, a hospital nurse, assisted by a nun from the monastery, immediately began to change his clothes and threw his undershirt on the next bed. In this bed lay a paralytic, who once the undershirt landed upon him, was instantly healed and jumped out of bed praising God for his miraculous healing. This was the first of many miracles that St. Nektarios began to perform in death.
From:
http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/nektarios/nektarios.shtml
Just a few things I want to comment on:
((SO, the sovereign all powerful, yet loving Heavenly Father allowed me to suffer. The question is “why?”))
Most likely because you failed to get the tooth repaired when the crown first came off.
((Certainly that has been the case when Colin got cancer.))
Colin got cancer because of the fallen state of man. It is not God’s will for anyone to have cancer……never was from the beginning of creation and never will be. To quote a 5th generation pastor, Bill Johnson, of Bethel Church in Redding, CA, “I can’t afford to have thoughts in my head that aren’t in God’s. It is a great misconception to think that God gives cancer – He doesn’t have it to give. I refuse to blame God for my dad’s cancer or any other calamity in life for that matter. We simply live in a world of conflict and sin. Bad things happen. While I may not understand “why”, I do understand that neither God nor His covenant is deficient. While God is big enough to use every situation for His glory, it doesn’t mean that the given problem was His will. Not everything that happens in life is God’s will. We must stop blaming Him. The cornerstone of our faith is the fact that God is always good and is the giver of only good gifts. If we fall short in our pursuit of a miracle, the lack is never on God’s side of the equation. I refuse to sacrifice the revelation that God is always good on the altar of human reason because of my need to make sense of my seemingly unanswered prayer.”
We are still believing that God will create a new eye for Colin. Tom and I have believed that from the very day we found out about the cancer. Every record of what God has done in generations past is a promise of what He will do again because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He created new limbs and gave sight to the blind. We don’t know if the blind had lost an eye or whether it was from another reason, but I know that nothing is impossible for my God.
((Stephen could embrace his suffering at the hands of his earthly enemies, how much more can we embrace our martyrdom at the hands of the demons (if we believe that illness is demonic, as I do). You can destroy my body, but my soul is untouchable. As the verse you quoted from revelation goes “by the word of their martyrdom.” (logon tis marturias).))
Stephen suffered because of his identification with Christ as did all of the apostles – not because of sickness or disease. I only pray that when called upon to stand for not what we believe, but who we believe, that all of us will have the courage and the grace to stand no matter what the cost.
I love you and pray that your tooth issue will be resolved quickly.
Mom
((SO, the sovereign all powerful, yet loving Heavenly Father allowed me to suffer. The question is “why?”))
Most likely because you failed to get the tooth repaired when the crown first came off.
Exactly. It rains on the just and the unjust. There are physical reasons for why things happen, and things are broke in this fallen world. I am negligent and often pay the consequences. We, Mankind are negligent and thus the whole world is broke. It rains on the just and the unjust.
On Colin's cancer, you are correct that it is a part of the fallen world. I think I stated that God does not GIVE us any pain and suffering, including cancer. Only GOOD things come from God. But I certinaly have to disagree with Bill Johnson when he says: "Not everything that happens in life is God’s will." How can we say that? Is He not sovreign? Is He not almighty? EVERYTHING happens because of His will. If not, then He is NOT God and hardly worth worshipping.
BUT it does not mean that we BLAME God. Sickness and suffering our on this earth because of MY will, because of MY sin. Responsibility for even my kids cancer starts with me and my rebellion. It sucks when the innocents suffer, but it is because we are all in this together.
But God allows in His perfect will.
God is perfectly capable of giving Colin a new eye, there is no doubt. But the real miracle is that He can give Colin (and all of us) a new HEART. And for that the sacrifice of an eye or any body part is well worth it....
Stephen suffered because of his identification with Christ as did all of the apostles – not because of sickness or disease. I only pray that when called upon to stand for not what we believe, but who we believe, that all of us will have the courage and the grace to stand no matter what the cost.
I don't understand the distinction. Suffering is suffering, whether it be by someone's sword or by virus/bacteria/cancer. The point is to identify ALL of our suffering with Christ. All suffering is an opportunity to be Christ like, and count it all a joy. St. Paul certainly treated his "thorn in the flesh" in such a manner.
Thanks for the dialogue!
Your son.