to suffer

Today I heard an interview with an author of a new book that discusses the idea of suffering vs. a benevolent God.

I listened to him talk about his life in the Catholic church and his life removed from Catholicism as a believer. And then I listened as he discussed that through becoming a biblical historian, he came to believe that there is no God.

To him, the accounts of the gospels are contradictions. He stated that to see them any other way is to take away from the perspective of each of the writers of them.

Also, through his research of the history of the world, he concluded that the amount of suffering that has existed since the beginning of time completely negates the proposition that there could be a God.

I heard all of this immediately after sharing a conversation with a woman at work about the very same subject.

This woman was talking about a book she was reading written by a Christian in communist Romania. The author's faith was only strengthened by the horrors he endured and the peace he felt in the midst of it. He wrote this book in three days, the first three days after he had been released from prison, only after he had sought out his torturer to forgive him face-to-face.

This woman shared with me conversations she had had with missionaries in Communist countries, places where the belief in God is forbidden. She talked about the eyes of the people, how empty they are, and what a joyless culture it is.

So... in my mind... I recapped...

One man, who presumably didn't suffer because of his faith but rather enjoyed the freedom of studying it at the greatest of lengths, concludes that because of the suffering he that he has read accounts of (and possibly seen first hand, I'm not sure), there is no God.

The other man suffered horrible atrocities for his faith in God for years, day in and day out. He also had an eye-witnessed account to others suffering as well, many who did not survive. And what he took away from the experience was an unbreakable faith.

What's the difference? How can two people draw such opposite conclusions about the same God? How can one man, who many of us would not blame for denying God, choose him, while the other with no tangible reason to do so reject him?

Something tells me that the answer is something more simple than I'd think possible.

It's experience.

The first author was a very knowledgable man. I'm sure he knows more about the bible than someone like myself. He probably has every last detail memorized, especially the ones needed to back his position on his faith (or lack there of). But, in his entire interview, I didn't hear him mention anything about experiencing God. About being tested. About God being tested in his life and failing. It just seemed like he did a lot of reading and reasoning within himself, and then he concluded what he did based on thought.

The second author may or may not be a biblical scholar. I don't know. But he lived under conditions which I couldn't be able to comprehend. He absolutely had to rely on God for every breath that he took, for his sanity, and for the ability to forgive his torturer. I'm sure throughout the years it wasn't ever easy to believe in an all loving God in heaven, but something sustained it in him. And does it make sense? Is it rational to think that through suffering unspeakable atrocities day after day for years that there is a Creator out there who truly loves you? No, it's not logical at all.

But this man still believed. He still loved after all that.

He had to have experienced something beyond himself, his own thoughts, while in that prison.

He had to have experienced God.

I'd like to think that I'm a seasoned Christian, but really, I'm not. This faith is so grand that I feel as though I'm only beginning the babysteps of the journey. And the more my understanding grows, the longer than path seems to be.

But here's something I've learned.

When I truly seek God out, the real God, not the one I make him to be (you know, the one who is supposed to answer all my prayers, give me what I want, and not expect me to pursue His will for my life, and not let me suffer at all) I find Him. I feel Him. I hear His quiet voice. He speaks to me through trusted friends. I am confirmed.

When I make demands of Him, when I ask Him to change others, when I expect Him to connect to me when I refuse to read His word, fill my mind with junk, abstain from relationships with other believers who will hold me accountable, ignore His convictions, I can't find Him. Because that god- the god of my demands- doesn't exist.

And those times that I experience Him the most are also those times when I'm suffering the most.

I guess then, when left alone with my own thoughts, I reconcile suffering as almost a necessary component for us humans to get to know God. For without it, many of us wouldn't ever reach out to Him.

We'd never have the opportunity to experience Him.