Question: “As a follow-up question to yesterday’s theme of suffering, I ask why do we live in a life of suffering that can destroy our faith, destroy our relationship with God, and alienate us from our own family as well as much of our Christian community?”

Answer: I do not agree that suffering can destroy true faith. Peter says (1 Pet 1:3ff) that suffering refines our faith and proves it to be genuine just as gold is refined by fire. Suffering is a way in which those who have true faith are separated from those who do not. True faith is not based on having everything comfortable in this life. The true believer does not make a deal with God that he will believe in God and serve Him as long as he is materially blessed. The book of Job shows us how one can endure suffering without turning from God. True, we may ask God why and even complain, as did Job, but if our faith is real, it cannot deny God. Saving faith is a gift from God, and it cannot be destroyed by anything. Thus our relationship with God is secure. If we are alienated from our family or Christian community, then that is a part of the suffering that must be borne. In the end suffering has a sanctifying effect on us and draws the true believer closer to God.

Yet I realize that the question of human suffering cannot be answered simply. God has chosen to allow suffering in His world and to allow it among His people. We have to hold to the promises of God when times are dark; it is these promises that will sustain us. Eventually all shall work for good in our lives and we shall one day see the point to the suffering which for the time appears so bewildering to us.