The practice of freedom, Learning to live the virtues part 10

Hope when believing seems to make things WORSE

Someone recently said to me: “I have started reading the Bible.
I think I believe in God now. But since I began believing, terrible things have started happening.”
Behind those words is a frightening question: Did turning toward God cause this?
The short answer is no. God is not punishing you for seeking Him.
Illness is not evidence that you have made a spiritual mistake. Nor is suffering the universe “balancing the books.”
This is where for the Church the virtue of hope begins—not by denying that something terrible is happening,
but by refusing to let suffering tell us who God is. Hope does not say, “Everything will soon be fine.”
Hope says, “Whatever comes, I am not abandoned. My illness is not God’s accusation against me,
and my future is not governed by karma, fate, or fear. My life is held by Christ.” Jesus refuses the arithmetic of blame.
Karma says that if something bad has happened, someone must have done something to deserve it.
But Jesus refuses that way of thinking.
When Jesus and His disciples met a man who had been blind from birth, the disciples asked:
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.”—John 9:2–3
The disciples wanted a cause and someone to blame.
Jesus turned their attention away from blame and toward what God would now do.

St John Chrysostom is very direct about this passage.
The man and his parents were ordinary human beings and therefore sinners, but, he says,  “his blindness proceeds not from that.”
His suffering was not a punishment assigned to him because somebody had sinned.
Hope frees us from reading every hardship as a verdict upon our lives.
Christ does not promise an easy road
The Life of the Church—the Life in Christ—does not promise an easy path.
Christ never says, “Follow Me and nothing painful will happen.”
He says, “Follow Me,” and then walks with us through suffering, even through death.
The Cross reveals this astonishing truth about God: God does not watch human suffering from a safe distance.
In Christ Jesus, God enters our suffering. He knows pain, fear, abandonment, injustice, and death from within.
The hope of the Church is therefore not: “If I believe strongly enough, nothing bad will happen.”
The hope of the faithful follower of Christ is: “Whatever happens, I will not face it alone.”
Hope does not explain every suffering…hope refuses to let suffering have the final word!

And we must be assured that faith and medical care belong together
Seeking medical treatment is not a failure of faith.
St Basil the Great taught that the art of medicine has been given to humanity by God for the relief of sickness.
The Church neither makes medicine our god nor refuse the help it offers.
We pray, and we see the physician. We trust God, and we receive appropriate treatment.
One of the great modern saints, St Luke of Crimea, was both a bishop and an accomplished surgeon.
He prayed for the sick and operated upon them. For him there was no contest between faith and medicine.
Both could become ways of loving and caring for a suffering person.

I you are anew beleiver or have beleived for years and are suffering tell your physician the whole story,
including anything new or unusual that has appeared. Ask questions. Seek appropriate treatment. Let others help you.
Receiving help is not weakness, and is one of the ways we permit others to love us.
Do not become preoccupied with darkness
When trouble appears soon after we begin seeking God, it is tempting to think:
“Perhaps I have attracted something terrible.”
St Porphyrios taught that we ought to turn our attention toward Christ rather than spend our strength staring into the darkness.
A room does not become light because we analyse the darkness, but becomes light when the lamp is lit.
This doesn’t mean pretending that suffering is unreal.
It means that fear is no longer allowed to interpret everything that happens.
We do not need to understand everything before approaching Christ.
We do not need to make ourself spiritually respectable.
We do not have to arrive with perfect faith. We may simply pray: “Lord Jesus Christ, I am frightened.
I do not understand what is happening. If You are calling me, help me to trust You.
Stay with me in my illness, guide those who care for me, and lead me into Your Truth and peace. Amen.”

Where might God be in this? We ought not presume that God sent the illness.
And, we may say with confidence that illness cannot prevent God from coming near.
The works of God may appear through healing.
They may also appear through a doctor who listens, a neighbour who provides transportation,
a food bank that keeps someone fed, a congregation that refuses to abandon the suffering,
or the unexpected discovery that one is loved even while sick and afraid.
The Church’s question is not primarily: “What did I do to deserve this?”
But is: “Where is Christ meeting me now?”
He may be nearer than you imagine.

Regarding the freedom of hope, St Paul writes: “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” —Romans 5:3–5
St Paul does not call suffering good, nor does he tell us that God sent it.
He says that, in Christ, suffering need not remain barren.
God’s grace (the presence of the Holy Spirit)can bring endurance, character, and hope even there.

The hope of the Church is not optimism; but the freedom to entrust an uncertain future to God without
interpreting every suffering as accusation, punishment, or abandonment.
Karma says: Your suffering reveals what you deserve.
Fear says: Turning toward God has made things worse.
Hope says: I do not yet understand this, but suffering cannot separate me from the love of God.
Therefore, I may say: “I am frightened, but I am not abandoned.
I am ill, but I am not being punished for seeking God.
I do not know what tomorrow will bring, but tomorrow does not belong to fear.
Today and tomorrow belongs to Christ.”
Hope is freedom from the belief that our suffering is our destiny.

Questions for reflection

1. Have I ever interpreted suffering as evidence that God was angry with me or had abandoned me?
2. What is the difference between Christian hope and simply expecting everything to improve?
3. Where might Christ be meeting me through the care, presence, or practical help of another person?

Prayer Lord Jesus Christ, when suffering frightens and confuses us, free us from blame, superstition, and despair.
Give wisdom to those who care for the sick, strength to those who suffer, and compassion to those called to stand beside them.
Teach us to seek Your light without denying the darkness, and to entrust tomorrow to You.
For nothing—not illness, fear, suffering, or death— can separate us from Your love. Amen.