Why Suffer...

I have the honor and privilege of preaching this Sunday.  I'm speaking on the topic of suffering using Isaiah 53 and Romans 5 as my main passages.  The main gist of the sermon is to point to the fact that suffering is not a bad thing.  It seems that in Western Culture we view suffering as evil; or that suffering is some sort of divine punishment from on high.  We avoid or attempt to quell suffering at all costs.  Rather, suffering (no matter how much it makes us squirm) is oftentimes used by God as a tool to deepen us, mature us and/or to allow us to sympathize with others.  

So, I was doing some sermon prep. today and stumbled across some great quotes.  The first three are from a wonderful little compilation of quotes and scriptures entitled "A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Those Who Serve."  It's specifically geared for ministers and is meant to be used on spiritual retreats.  I personally have used the book several times and highly recommend it to you.  The final quote is obviously from C.S. Lewis' classic "The Screwtape Letters."  I originally fell in love with this quote during a Freshman Lit. class at Toccoa Falls.  I haven't really used the quote until now, but I feel it fits well with the theme.  However, I've droned on enough.  Without further adieu, the quotes...

“Suffering is the highest action of Christian obedience and I call blessed, not those who have worked, but all who have suffered. Suffering is the greatest work in the discipleship of Christ.”

- Hermann Bezzel

“God wounds deeply when He wills to heal.” - Hermann Brugge

“One of the fruits of solitude is an increased capacity for compassion--the ability 'to suffer with' another’s pain. It comes about as the result of an increased sense of solidarity with the human family of which we are a part. When Paul talks about 'suffering with those who suffer,' he is talking about compassion, that supreme gift without which we are less than fully human. It might well be that the greatest threat to human survival now confronting us is not the loss of energy or the increase of pollution, but the loss of compassion. We are confronted daily with the pain of human tragedy--the breakup of a family or the sunken face of a starving child--to such an extent that we soon learn to turn off what we see. In order to cope with our feelings of helplessness, we teach ourselves how not to feel. the tragedy in this response, which is probably more widespread than we dare believe, is that we also deaden our capacity for love. For Christians, the cross stand as a ever-present reminder that love an suffering are two sides of the same coin.” - James Fenhagen

And my personal favorite...

“And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For his ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot ‘temp’ to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do no be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems o have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.” - C.S. Lewis “The Screwtape Letters”