DOES GOD WANT US TO SUFFER?

Where is God when bad things happen?

A short story: Yesterday, I received a letter that referred to an event that happened almost a year ago, now on December 4th, 1951. My correspondent hadn’t forgotten, I doubt if any of us have. That was the night a number one bus drove into a column of young royal marine cadets in Chatham and killed 24 of them, you remember? Now, the letter asks some simple fundamental questions. Where was God on that December night? Why didn’t he stop it? Isn’t God suppossed to be good? Isn’t he supposed to love us? DOES GOD WANT US TO SUFFER? What if the answer to these question is yes? So, I’m not particularly sure God wants us to be happy. I think he wants us to love and to be loud. He wants us to grow up. I suggest to you that it is because God loves us, and he makes us the gift of suffering. To put it another way, pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone, out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel hurt us so much that it would make us perfect. Thank you very much. Dialog from SHADOWLANDS: C.S. Lewis, speaking at Oxford University. C.S. Lewis played by the great Anthony Hopkins.

Note: Other than Winston Churhhill, C.S. Lewis was the most heard radio voice of that era.

Comments: To me, this question must be asked: If our lives go perfectly and swimmingly along, can we become what God intends us to be? Does it not take friction to make the oyster? Does it often take pain and suffering for a human to draw closer to God? Food For Thought, Frankie The Earthman.