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Introduction:
Exile & Homecoming
Derek Poole
From
the Ardoyne Road...
Norman Hamilton
From
the Director
David Porter
Exile
and Homecoming
David McMillan
Be
Careful What You Wish For
Gareth Higgins
Bonfire
Reflections
Alwyn Thomson
Rights,
Relationships and Responsibilities
Kelvin McCracken
Wilson
On Suffering
Alan Wilson
Faith
and Practice - Debbie Watters
Ruth Hutchinson
Forgiveness
Janet Morris
WILSON ON SUFFERING
Suffering
and Scriptural Abuse
“Let the day of my birth be cursed,” he said, “and the night when I was conceived. Let that day be forever forgotten. Let it be lost even to God, shrouded in eternal darkness. Yes, let the darkness claim it for its own, and may a black cloud overshadow it. May it be blotted off the calendar, never again to be counted among the days of the month of that year! Let that night be bleak and joyless. Let those who are experts at cursing curse it. Let the stars of the night disappear. Let it long for light, but never see it, never see the morning light. Curse it for its failure to shut my mother’s womb, for letting me be born to come to all this trouble. Why didn’t I die at birth? Why did the midwife let me live?”
Not the kind of words we like to hear, they make us feel uncomfortable, and threaten our sensitivities. Yet these are the words of a spiritual man. In fact as far as God was concerned Job was blameless and upright. Yet he was able to be real and honest about how he was feeling. God could cope with Job’s honesty, but his three friends couldn’t. They were thinking, “How inappropriate, how irreverent, a godly person should not talk in that way.” So in an attempt to silence and control Job they attacked him with long spiritual speeches, avoiding Job’s reality.
To our shame many of us, when faced with someone else’s suffering and pain, fall into the same category as Job’s friends. We want to use scripture as a sand pit where we can bury our heads, quoting well worn clichés to protect ourselves from facing the discomfort that reality brings. Well meaning people come at times of trouble and glibly quote Bible verses as if they had some magical power to take the pain away, or change the difficult circumstances. But their attempts are counterproductive and add confusion and pain to an already difficult situation.
When people are feeling
under pressure they don’t always have the emotional resources or
mental concentration to apply the word of God adequately and appropriately.
Sometimes, in sheer desperation, they cling to verses that they have taken
out of context. This in turn leads to false hope, wrong expectations of
God, and further disappointment and disillusionment.
So how can we receive the genuine comfort and consolation that only scripture
can give, without misusing the word of God to anaesthetise our pain and
escape from reality? In the midst of severe suffering it is natural to
have a desperate need to try and make sense of it all. We have questions,
doubts, fears, and sometimes we may even feel abandoned by God. But if
we are going to find God’s comfort then we need to remind ourselves
that God’s intentions are always good. Joseph could say to his brothers,
“You intended to harm me but God intended it for good.” If we
blame God we will not experience the good that could result because of
our suffering. Suffering is one of the ways God uses to bring change and
transformation into our lives, and it is in the context of that transformation
that we are able to receive and be strengthened by the comfort that only
God can give.
We began with some strong words from the book of Job. Job’s speeches may disturb us; they are what I call ‘messy worship’. Job was being thoroughly real. He brought the content of his heart to God and did not use scripture as a detergent to sanitise his grief in order to make it more acceptable. The book ends with Job receiving comfort as he encounters God for himself. The comfort of scripture will come as we face reality and learn that to be brutally honest is not contrary to humble submission to the purposes of God. The question I have is this: Are we in the Church ready and willing to allow hurting people to be totally honest, or do they have to go on denying their pain and hiding behind those awful words, “No, honestly, we’re fine!” Lots of people have fallen away from God; could it be possible that we in the Church are partly responsible with our trite and superficial use of scripture? If so, then may God forgive us!
Alan Wilson is a regular contributor to Lion & Lamb.
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