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Lesson OneSuffering Comes With The Freedom To Choose5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson TwoSuffering Reveals What Is In Our Hearts5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson ThreeSuffering Takes Us To The Edge Of Eternity5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson FourGod Can Turn Suffering Around For Our Good5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson FivePain Can Warn Us Of Danger5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson SixIn Times Of Crisis We Find One Another5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson SevenSuffering Gives Opportunity To Trust God5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson EightPain Loosens Our Grip On This Life5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson NineGod Suffers With Us In Our Suffering5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson TenGod's Comfort Is Greater Than Our Suffering5 Activities1 Assessment
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Course Wrap-UpCourse Completion1 Activity1 Assessment
Participants 1
Discussion Questions
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As you see the cattle car used to carry Jews to the death camps of World War II, what thoughts most vividly come to your mind? Are you able to enter into their experience?
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10 Replies
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I cannot fathom what it was like during that time. It is gut-wrenching to imagine the suffering these people endured.
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It seems unjust from a human perspective to see Jews being sent to the end of their lift. When I didn’t know the Lord, I felt sorry for these people because they had their whole lives ahead of them and it was just taken from them due to the evil of a few people. I can’t imagine what they might be going through. My family was sent to internment camps during the war, but that pales in comparison to what the Jews experienced.
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Some of these cattle cars would pass Christian churches. The congregation could here the cries and pleas of the Jews. The congregation chose to sing louder rather than intervene.
I can only enter into the experience of the Jews on a didactic level. Our hearts are desperately wicked. There are the perpetrators of evil and the evil of those who chose to look away. The photos and exhibits of the holocaust’s events are gut wrenching, yet they only bring me to a place of little understanding. After seeing the photos & displays at the holocaust museum (Washington D.C.) I was struck by the paralel evil of present day abortions. Over 300000 deaths a year. There is blood on our hands. -
Sadness, grief and an eagerness to help. People should never be forced to be treated like that. I could never imagine being in their shoes or going through what they have
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I don’t have personal experience that could even come close to comparing to such suffering that would allow me to enter that experience. I imagine horror.
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In Dr. Brand’s assertion, how much difference is there between the ideas that sometimes God causes the conditions of suffering and that sometimes God is merely using what has already happened?
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10 Replies
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I don’t believe God causes the suffering but like with Job, He will allow the suffering. But praise God, Romans 8:28 reminds us that God will use the suffering for good.
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I think that God uses everything for his glory. Sometimes, like in the case of Job, he allows the suffering to happen, but the purpose of it is always to point back to him and our reliance on our Creator.
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In my mind I do not think that there is much difference. Whether God causes or uses our suffering to get our attention, it is ultimately his plan for our lives and to bring us back to him. Either way we should be happy to know that God loves us that much that He is taking time to reach out to us and bring us back to him.
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I think there are times of divine judgement, where God causes conditions of suffering, such as with the children of Israel. And other times, because we have free will and choice, God allows the suffering to be used for our good, such as with Job’s suffering. God allowed what happened to Job, but did not cause his suffering. Romans 8:28 says that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
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I think that the only way God really “causes” our suffering is by giving us free will. He is able to use our suffering, and our joy, to point us closer to Him.
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In what ways do you think suffering can awaken us to the reality and inevitability of the eternal?
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13 Replies
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When we suffer, we learn to rely more on God and seek Him. Prayer and His Word will help us through the suffering.
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When I was a Buddhist, I often wondered about suffering. No matter how many “good” things I did, I never could escape that there was suffering. I looked forward to the end of my life when I thought all suffering would end. My focus was on the suffering in my earthly life. When I thought about life, I expected it to be in the footsteps of reincarnation and that my “good” deeds would bring me closer to enlightenment. However, I think that eventually kept me asking questions about eternity and what if I was wrong about reincarnation.
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If God loves us and promised us the best, there has to be more than what is here….which means that there is something better on the other side.
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I think when we suffer, we somehow become awakened to reality of something greater or we tend to search for something greater to ease the pain. When we suffer I think we feel alone and it leads to depression on top of the issue causing the suffering. To feel like we have no hope during suffering can be a main cause for our inevitable search for the eternal.
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I think suffering gets our attention to be focused on God. When we are in a condition to have no other choice but to think of eternity, our minds turn to what happens after this life. Eternity is hardwired in us. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says “He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”