It was a loaded issue that ignited my internal debate, which I do not wish to make the subject of this post, so I won't. I will put it in these terms:
If something that is, in general, good, and that the Church reinforces as good and a blessing, causes an individual person struggle and strife, is that individual supposed to choose it despite the strife? Are we commanded to choose the suffering/ hardship for the sake of the refinement that will happen to us as a result?
Some suffering will come to us by circumstance, despite our choices. It is more or less outside of our control. No one chooses to be stricken with cancer, but if someone is injured while racing motorcycles, we might argue they chose to engage in activities that increased their risk for suffering. (I am NOT arguing that they therefore deserved it; just that their choices played a role in that instance/ experience of suffering.)
Suffering can be a vehicle of redemption. Christ is imaged as the suffering servant, as are many of the OT prophets. But in these instances, it is the suffering of one (Christ, prophets) that leads to the salvation of others (followers of Christ, people of Israel).
But are you saved by your own suffering? In the "working out of our salvation," are we commanded to choose the suffering because of it's redemptive potential? Or are we merely charged with embracing the suffering that comes to us, despite our best efforts to avoid it? Truly, I do not think I can bring myself to choose the suffering.
I'd be interested in your thoughts, via comment or email.
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3 comments:
This reminds me of a House quote.
The episode starts out with a fifteen year-old boy leading some sort of Evangelical church in a healing ceremony. The boy asserts that he has a gift of healing from Jesus Christ. And heals an older woman who can't walk. The boy thanks God and then passes out.
He's taken to the hospital and sent to House and his crew to be diagnosed. The boy tells the crew almost immediately that God speaks to him and says things to them like, "I can tell you are harboring anger towards one of your collegues, etc." Either God really is speaking to him or he is semi-intuitive. Well, they do a number of tests on him and discover that he has a cluster of benign tumors in his brain that cause hallucinations and his symptoms. House wants to remove them surgically basically saying that it's time for the boy to become a normal teenager.
The boy adamantly refuses the surgery saying that God did this for a reason. The boy's father sticks with his son. House finds his best friend, Wilson, a cancer doctor, who is a master manipulator. (House and Wilson have a mock bet that House has to give Wilson a dollar each time a patient thanks him for telling them that they are dying. Wilson is so good that patients thank him for giving them bad news.)So, House asks Wilson to talk to the boy.
I wrote this down because it was really great.
Wilson: Do you think God wants you to die?
Boy: This is the way that the Lord often is with his chosen one's. He gives the most trials to those that He loves most.
Wilson: (Flabbergasted but calm. Bear in mind, he says this slowly and sincerely. Not rudely.) So, you believe that you are a...saint. The way I understand it, one of the hallmarks of a saint is humility. Now someone with true humility would consider the possibility that God hadn't chosen him for that kind of honor. He'd consider the possibility that he just had an illness.
Hmmm...
Erica,
Thanks for commenting, seriously, Thank you. Interesting perspective. I get it, because the reason I don't *choose* the hardship is because I do not trust myself to embrace it and LET it be for my sanctification.
Exactly. I think there is something to be said though for suffering for a cause. Martyrs would choose suffering over worshipping another god, and in that way, they were made holy.
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