Torch, Winter 1991

- --------------------------- remember all too clearly my first significant encounter with suffering. While a sophomore at Cedarville College, I received news that my father had an illness which seemed to threaten the very existence of our closely knit family . As the reality of what was happening settled in, I was overwhelmed with a wave of confusion, desperation, and despair. My world, which once seemed so stable, so secure, now seemed incredi– bly vulnerable. That was the first of several difficult trials which have forced me to grapple with the issue of human suffering. As I looked to the Scriptures for answers , certain themes began to emerge. Much of what I learned about suffer– ing came from the pages of I Peter, a book from a man who knew what it was to suffer and written to a group of people going through tremendous persecution. As Peter comforted those he addressed, he began to spell out the nature of human suffering. • Trials are temporary. Peter compared our trials to the passing seasons (1:6: "...now for a season"). Having grown up in Michigan, I know a bit about what it is like to wait through a miserable season. Trials, like a cold winter or long rainy spells, seem as though they may go on forever. But, eventually, the sun breaks through and the season of suffering passes. This is not to say that some trials don ' t last a long time. I know of individuals whose suffering will proba– bly stay with them for the remainder of this lifetime. But for the Christian who measures this existence in terms of eternity, even lifelong trials are like vapors that appear for a few moments and then vanish. We can survive suffering by keeping its brevity in focus. • Trials are necessary. Suffering may seem without purpose, but Peter's message to us is that there is a necessity behind our pain--we suffer ".. .if necessary" (I :6). Suffering accomplishes things in our lives that no I r1a by Carl Ruby Job And His Friends. "Man that is born of a woman is of few days , and fu ll of trouble. ." (Job 14: I). other experience could produce. When life goes well, we seldom grow. Our faith atrophies because we are not forced to use it. Trials bring us to our knees and force us to take our Bibles off the shelf. The athlete says, "No pain, no gain." The biggest gains in my spiritual life have been made during times of the greatest pain. • Trials come in many forms. The KJV calls them manifold temptations. The NIV simply states that we suffer grief in all kinds of trials (I :6). My experience is that suffering comes in both dull aches and crushi ng blows . Dull aches are long wearisome bu rdens like unwanted single– ness; dry , withered maniages; struggles with humiliating sins; and longing for