extended suffering

I wonder what you think about Dan McCartney's thoughts on suffering and our relationship with God . . .

'our life with God is a struggle because we are still sinners, but it only compounds the sin if we try to avoid struggling honestly with God. There is no need for us to justify God, but we absolutely must encounter him.'

or the role of faith and suffering . . .

'In the silence and the darkness, such passionate pleading and beating on the gate of heaven is precisely what faith must do.'

or why Job's suffering is such an example . . .

'Even in the midst of his agonies and unceasing complaints against God, Job remained faithful, according to God's declaration at the end, because he never stopped struggling with God.'

Today there is much suffering- illness, loneliness, financial hardship, death, loss, depression and the list goes on. And I keep thinking about how we respond when suffering comes our way but mostly these thoughts by McCartney get me thinking about extended suffering.

What to do we do when the suffering goes longer than a month, a year, three years or a lifetime? How do we respond? Maybe you, like me, first cry out to God. Our suffering consumes our thoughts and prayers. We get our friends to rally round and pray with us. We remain hopeful and we seem to always be crying out to the Lord for his mercy.

But what about when it doesn't let up? Or when one suffering lets up only to make way for another? Do we keep crying out to God? Are we still wrestling with God as the months and even years drag on? And this is what I think McCartney is trying to wake us up to. When suffering becomes unrelenting and extended, faith must keep driving us to cry out to God. Crying out in pain, anger, even unbelief is better than not talking to God at all.

We must not let pride, exhaustion, apathy, or hopelessness keep us from begging on God's mercy. Extended suffering is synonymous with extended humility. Its humiliating being on your knees before God, crying out for his mercy but that is exactly the expression faith. It is not enough to keep going to church or surrounding ourselves with Christians hoping that God's silence in suffering will somehow resolve itself without any action on our part.

Being in process means:

Extended suffering must drive us to God's word and crying out for His mercy, we must not stop with struggling God.