Were we made for suffering? If God so loves us, why did He have to allow us to suffer? I think that suffering is on the flip-side, a measure of love. Love, in many cases, exposes itself to suffering. In Genesis, Adam was made to toil "painfully" all day for his food, and Eve was made to suffer pains at childbirth. Jesus suffered greatly at the end of His earthly life. Pain is evident in every aspect of life.
I suppose we were made to suffer to some extent. It is with pain, after all, that we realise more deeply the meaning of paradise. We wouldn't quite enjoy joy without the knowledge of what it feels like without joy. It is through suffering that we experience the demands and results of love.
If there is not a single person in the world who is free from the problem of suffering, then I suppose it's important to prepare oneself for suffering and make the best of it.
Still, infliction of pain is not necessarily love. In the past, I knew of people in school who would cut themselves over someone else. The pain, they explain with some degree of irony, helps to distract them what where it hurts the most - the heart. We all know that this is wrong. It doesn't make sense to suffer this way over a broken heart. What's the difference between the two "forms" of suffering?
One is self-centred, the other is self-less. When someone inflicts pain on himself for his own sake, it becomes doubly painful. The pain that he was trying to get rid of remains, added to the pain that he has just put on himself.
The other - the self-less form of suffering - defines love. It is redemptive. Adam and Eve did not choose to suffer for food and their children. But the punishment God imposed on them teaches us the meaning of redemptive suffering. It teaches that the toils we go through in school and at work comes with a prize: food on the table. It teaches a mother - when she carries a burden for nine months, and suffers for hours in labour - how precious that baby is. God allows suffering so that we appreciate the important things in life.
Jesus is as usual the primary example of redemptive suffering. Adam and Eve had no choice. But Jesus did - He was God incarnate. Yet, He chose to give in to His own will, and suffered for us. The punishment of sin is death, and God took it upon Himself to bear the weight of all our sins, and pay the penalty for humanity.
In the Book of Deuteronomy, the people of God were given a choice:
Moses said to the people: "Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God ... loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow. If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish." - 30:15-18, NAB
That choice, between "walking in [God's] ways" and turning away from God, is what we are faced with everyday. And the promise remains: choosing God leads to life (v. 19-20).
This choice, of course, leads to suffering. If even Jesus "must suffer greatly and be rejected" (Lk 9:22), then we, who want to be with Christ "must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (v. 23).
During Lent, we, to an extent, follow Christ's choice to suffer. We too choose to suffer, to go without our favourite food, or to eat less, or to pray even more, or to spend less on ourselves in order to bless others. But it stands the risk of becoming a pointless self-infliction of pain. Pain and suffering must come with a cause. It must be redemptive. These must all add up to make us self-less, and less self-indulgent. There is only that much space in our hearts. It is only when we are empty of ourselves that Jesus can fill us, and make us instruments to share His message and love. Thus the promise: "Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it" (v. 24).
My dad, knowing how much I hated studying in the past, always told me: "If you hate studying, study hard now. Otherwise it will haunt you in future." It is pretty much a similar concept. We choose God, we suffer will suffer much on earth. In exchange, Jesus' promise to us is that "the one who perseveres to the end will be saved" (Matthew 24:13).
As we walk on this journey of suffering and self-denial, let us be like Jesus, led by the Spirit into the desert. Let us confront our sinfulness and empty ourselves of our pride and our ego. We prepare ourselves to embrace the cross, which embodies the enriching power of suffering and self-abandonment, and follow Him.
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