Suffering

It has been a while since I've posted any quotes but because Sam and I are dabbling with another blog found here http://lovelifeandmess.blogspot.com/ I thought I would put some up. And so here is the first of a few quotes from the various books I have been reading. Also feel free to interact and join in the conversation, also be encouraged to read these books yourself, you can find links to all the quoted books by clicking on their titles.

Today's quote is from Chris Wright's book The God I Don't Understand. It is a book that I have almost finished, I am listening to the audio version of it while I walk. I find this a great way to read, or should I say listen to, books. This is a wonderfully rich book offering new perspectives on some of life's toughest questions and mysteries.In the chapter titled, "The Mystery of Evil" Wright begins talking about evil; both moral and natural. He explains:

"But there is also a vast amount of suffering caused indirectly by human
wickedness. The drunken driver may survive, but kill or injure other innocent  people. Wars cause so-called collateral damage.Stray bullets from a gang fight or bank robbery kill innocent bystanders. A railway maintenance crew goes home early and fails to complete inspection of the track; a train is derailed and  people are killed and injured. Whole populations suffer for generations after negligent industrial contamination. We can multiply examples from almost every news bulletin we see or hear. These are all forms of moral evil. They cause untold suffering, and they all go back in some form or another to culpable actions or failures of human beings.

Somehow, we manage to live with such facts, simply because they are so
common and universal that we have “normalized” them, even if we regret or
resent them and even if we grudgingly admit that humanity itself is largely
to blame. But whenever something terrible on a huge scale happens, like
the 2004 tsunami, or the cyclone in Myanmar in 2008, or the earthquakes
in  Pakistan, Peru, and China, the cry goes up, “How can God allow such a
thing? How can God allow such suffering?” My own heart echoes that cry
and I join in the protest at the gates of heaven. Such appalling suffering, on
such a scale, in such a short time, inflicted on  people without warning and for
no reason, offends all our emotions and assumptions that God is supposed to
care. We who believe in God, who know and love and trust God, find ourselves torn apart by the emotional and spiritual assault of such events.

“How can God allow such things?” we cry, with the built-in accusation
that if he were any kind of good and loving God, he would not allow them.
Our gut reaction is to accuse God of callousness or carelessness and to demand
that he do something to stop such things.

But when I hear  people voicing such accusations – especially those who
don’t believe in God but like to accuse the God they don’t believe in of his
failure to do things he ought to do if he did exist – then I think I hear a voice
from heaven saying:

“Well, excuse me, but if we’re talking here about who allows what, let me
point out that thousands of children are dying every minute in your world of
preventable diseases that you have the means (but obviously not the will) to
stop. How can you allow that?

“There are millions in your world who are slowly dying of starvation while
some of you are killing yourselves with gluttony. How can you allow such
suffering to go on?

“You seem comfortable enough knowing that millions of you have less
per day to live on than others spend on a cup of coffee, while a few of you
have more individual wealth than whole countries. How can you allow such
obscene evil and call it an economic system?

“There are more  people in slavery now than in the worst days of the pre-abolition slave trade. How can you allow that?

“There are millions upon millions of  people living as refugees, on the
knife-edge of human existence, because of interminable wars that you indulge
in out of selfishness, greed, ambition, and lying hypocrisy. And you not only
allow this, but collude in it, fuel it, and profit from it (including many of you
who claim most loudly that you believe in me).

“Didn’t one of your own singers put it like this, ‘Before you accuse me,
take a look at yourself.’ ” 

While this subject is one with no simple answers I find this quote helpful, offering a perspective I've not come across before. When I call out to God saying, "WHY?" and "How can you allow this to happen?" I also need to be aware that there are a lot of evil and suffering that I'm also directly or indirectly responsible for. It's all good to point the finger at God but I also need to point the finger back at myself and ask the very same question, "WHY?"

What do you think about this quote, does this help or hinder? Any thoughts?