Day 4: Absolute Suffering

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

4 Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

-James 5:1-7

Yesterday’s devotion focused on suffering in the Western world. It is important to make distinctions between the relative nature of suffering because it helps to understand better the global context of hardship, pain and conflict. Oftentimes, people choose agnosticism, atheism or general scepticism because of the harrowing images of famine-stricken lands, extreme absolute poverty, and the suffering of others in developing countries. How can a god exist when there is so much suffering, not created by human hands at all? But is this the truth?

Realistically, the issues we see in developing countries are oftentimes the direct result of Western interference and historical conflicts. From Transatlantic Slavery, the Scramble for Africa (in which Kind Leopold massacred over 5 million innocent Congolese people), to vulture funds, neo-colonialism and arms deals, Western success and development has often come at the expense of others. It is impossible to observe a community living in abject poverty without considering the origins of their suffering. It is an uncomfortable truth, but we owe a lot of our comfort to the blood and lives of oppressed others. At the same time, people living in the West who originate from said developing countries are subjected to oppression, inequality and discrimination. Global suffering is a complex and nuanced issue.

So, what can we do? In the Bible, God could have easily just interacted with humankind himself, but he didn’t. He used prophets, judges and kings, gave societies their own autonomy to work things out amongst themselves, make decisions and laws. He let them be human. There are enough instances where this has gone wrong: there is a lot of bloody conflict in the Bible, and a lot of broken people have had their lives narrated—warts and all—for us to learn and take lessons from. At the same time, he believed in the good works that people can do for others. We should utilise our free will to do the same, today.

There are so many opportunities for us to change the world around us, to challenge inequality and make life better for others. Giving to charity, making gofundmes for struggling neighbours, writing letters of protest to dictators via Amnesty International, using your democratic right to vote better people in power: the list is endless. This doesn’t make it easier; sometimes news can be overwhelmingly sad, and it might make you feel insignificant, but the little good you do can make a world of difference to someone else. Like the mustard seed-sized faith, god can multiply your good works.