SEEING GOD'S FACE IN SUFFERING

Rev. Douglas Whitelaw, M.A. is the executive director of Ark Aid Mission in London, Ontario. This post is from his paper 'Toward A Theology of Suffering'.

SECTION 6/9

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Suffering comes in many forms – natural and human-made disasters, sickness, broken relationships, the  emotional pain we inflict on those closest to us because of our own brokenness. A curious feature of Western culture is we are often unconscious of our own suffering. We focus on the 'less fortunate' and indeed, poverty is the root of all kinds of evil and requires redress, particularly because the exalted standard of living we enjoy can only occur because we are exploiting others and not paying the full cost of what we enjoy. But the very things we continually thank God for, our peace, liberty and prosperity are the very things that, as we embrace them as absolute goods, shrivel our souls and limit our ability to know God. In the West we do not understand our poverty of relationships, nor do we understand how Christians elsewhere can be happy, or indeed exhibit joy when they have 'nothing.' They in turn see our idolatry and wonder why we settle for so little. Any understanding of suffering must recognize and redress all its forms.

Jean Vanier points out that those who come to truly know the developmentally challenged people he works with, or indeed any marginalized people, move through a process of understanding from fear to acceptance to realizing that in them, we see 'the face of God.' In other words, in serving them, we serve God and thus recognize our own poverty of spirit and therefore are freed to begin our own journey of redemption. So, when God describes to Adam the suffering he will encounter in living as a broken being in a broken world, God also determines to use that very suffering to bring about his redemptive, restorative purpose. This is a function of God's goodness, as Augustine points out: "Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil" (Enchiridion xi).