What makes a good story? A great story and mystery and villains. The victory of “good” only makes great reading if there is a significant enemy we wish to see overcome. The happy ending is profound when it follows real threat and danger. Suffering whether in the fantasy world or in real life is park of making the story meaningful and purposeful.
God has created a world which has real characters, real challenges and real sin. People are not puppets but are more agents who make real decisions with real consequences. We rejoice when they choose well but we suffer when they do evil.
Suffering is an unavoidable consequence of living in a world where we all get to make choices. But most of us are willing to suffer as long as its for a reason. We don’t want to be part of meaningless suffering.. We don’t even need to fully understand the meaning, just that the suffering has real importance and meaning. The Old Testament’s “job” was not a hero of understanding he was a hero of faith.
Our lives are the most realistic story we know. If god had revealed to us the script of our life would we have exited the comfort of the womb? Would we have chosen to be born and face the insecurities of life? The weeping and wondering, the joys and the sorrows, the drama and the mystery, the meaning and the purpose
God caused us to be born into a real world, with real relationships, with real suffering and with real purpose. Not only that, He also promises the ultimate happy ending. We need a vision of heaven which rights all wrongs and makes sense of all suffering.
Stephen Semenchuk