Suffering as Vocation

The story is told of a Sunday school teacher whose assignment was to explain to the six-year-olds in his class what someone had to do in order to go to heaven. In an attempt to discover what the kids already believed about the subject, he asked a few questions.

"If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale, and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into heaven?"
"NO!" the children answered.

"If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into heaven?"
Again, the answer was "NO!"

"Well then," he said, "if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children and loved my wife, would that get me into heaven?"
Again they all shouted, "NO!"

"Well then, how can I get into heaven?"

A boy in the back row stood up and shouted, "YOU GOTTA BE DEAD!"

Therein lies the problem: You gotta be dead to go to heaven. Consequently, you gotta be dead to know much about the place, as well.

~Excerpted from How Good is Good Enough by Andy Stanley


The title of this post is one of the topic headings of the new Bible study series for the womens' circles in our church. The whole thing focuses around suffering, where it comes from, why it exists, and what we as humans can do about it. The topic of suffering is not something I'm unfamiliar with, not necessarily because I've been through an exceptional amount of it, but more because it is a subject that came up a number of times during my last year as a religion major, and also has come up a number of times in my thoughts and conversations as of late.

Some of this thought process parallels what I wrote in the previous post. Is life fair? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people? In the last post, more emphasis was put on what it means to be caught between a spiritual life and a life afflicted with an addiction or a habit that general society considers unacceptable. This discussion focuses more on where those situations arise, or, if the question can even be raised, why they arise.

Earlier this morning, I was reading an e-mail from a friend of mine that mentioned a number of questions they are currently facing, most of them, simply "whys." Why doesn't anyone think religion is important? Why has my life been so easy when others lives have been so difficult? Why do I deserve to have an easy life when I don't think I've done anything particularly wonderful? Why is my child, who is a generally good kid, going through so many struggles? Why don't more people put their faith first in their lives? Why do people refuse help from those who are trying to make their lives better?

After having talked about the why's of suffering a couple nights before, I found myself going back to some of the questions that were raised that evening...questions about how or if you can comfort someone who has lost a friend or family member, and the difference between a 99 year old woman dying peacefully in her sleep and being able to say that God called her home, and a 4 year old boy being killed in a car accident and how almost cruel it would be to use the same comment.

It struck me as odd to hear him say the word "deserve" so many times in relation to the things that he or those he knew were experiencing. Biblically, people were always looking for someone or something to blame when someone was afflicted with a disease or a physical ailment. Whether it was the person's own folly or that of their parents, every ailment or pain that they incurred was the fault of something that had been done. However, rarely if ever was that the case even then, and it certainly isn't the case now. Life, chaos, and evil simply present in the world cause such suffering. It exists, that in and of itself is enough for us to encounter it.

Grace is such a strange thing, as is unconditional love. It is nearly impossible for a frail human mind to grasp the possibility of a clean slate, and even more impossible for that same mind to understand why anyone would want to give that clean slate to such a flawed and undeserving person. And the only one who does understand this concept fully, unfortunately cannot bestow any answer upone us other than that He loves us so much that he can't do anything but give us that grace. There is no deserving. There is no earning. There is no turning away. There is no being better, or worse, there is no good or bad. There is only us, and a God who loves us so much that he was willing to undergo ultimate pain so that one day we might no longer even know what pain is. However, despite all of this, pain still exists, is present in this world, and often times, it seems like pain and evil are winning. There is no good way to explain it, no cut and dry answers that give us reasons for its presence. So, we are forced back to our faith...forced back to grace, time and time again.

Here's something to think about: if God appeared to you and asked, "why should I let you into heaven?" how would you answer? If you like most people, your answer might run something along these lines:

"I've always tried to..."
"I never..."
"I do my best..."

Whether I am talking to Muslims, Hindus, or Christians, the majority of the answers I receive to that question go back to an individual's attempt to live a good life. Why? Because most people believe that good people go to heaven.

The moral? Behave yourself now and you don't really need to worry too much about what happens next. The end. Now let's get back to work, golf, Little League, PTA--the pressing issues of this life.

But then every once in a while something happens that forces you to seriously consider the question of what's next--a funeral, a health scare, a birthday, a glance in the mirror. You don't like to think about it. You rarely ever talk about it. But it is always there. And the older you get, the more often you find yourself pushing it from your mind.

The fact is, the mortality rate for humans is 100 percent. And that bothers you. In spite of the fact that you believe there is something better on the other side of life, you are not at peace. And for good reason.

You see, as good as you are--and you are pretty good--you aren't really sure if you have been good enough. You hope so. And you are certainlyh better than...well...than certain people you know.

But how good is good enough?

Where's the line? Who is the standard? Where do you currently stand? Do you have enough time left to stash away enough good deeds to counterbalance your bad ones?

And while we're asking questions, I'll go ahead and throw one in that perhaps you've wondered about but were afraid to ask: just who is in charge of this operation? God? If so, he ought to have been a bit clearer about how this whole thing works. If our eternal residence hangs in the balance of how we live this, we could certainly do with some direction. A standard. A mile marker or two. Perhaps a mid-term.

"But wait," you say, "Isn't it the job of religion to answer those questions for me?" Sure. Most of the various world religions and their books do exist to answer those questions. Teachers, preachers, ulema, rabbis, priests, lamas--they are all in the business of getting us safely to the other side. Specifically, they are responsible for helping you and me understand how to live in such a way as to ensure a happy ending.

So why are you still unsure? You've been to church. Perhaps yo uattended a few religion classes as a child. And yet, if you are like the majority of people I talk to, you still are not confident where you stand with God. I ran across an interesting quote by Gandhi that underscored the universal uncertainty associated with religious belief. When questioned why he proselytized in the arena of politics but not in religion, he responded, "in the relam of the political and social and economic, we can be sufficiently certain to convert; but in the realm of religion there is not sufficient certainty to convert anybody, and, therefore, there can be no conversions in religions." Now that's helpful, isn't it? Even Gandhi didn't find certainty in religion.

~Excerpted from How Good is Good Enough by Andy Stanley

Though both of the excerpts I included in this post talk about salvation and not grace directly, in my eyes, the two are one in the same. We cannot receive salvation without the gift of grace. Religion - I can't stand that word. It has been misinterpreted and misunderstood for so long. Things are blamed on religion, attributed to religion, and called religion, and people hear them and automatically link them to their own faith or use it as a reason to why they don't have faith in God, and they link it to the faith of others, all of which cheapens it. I believe in God. I believe his son died to save me. I believe he loves me, and I believe that the only reason I receive grace and salvation is because of this love. I don't know why. I don't know why bad stuff happens to me and to those I love. But he loves us still. That is all. And that is enough.