An interesting and thought provoking answer to the question of ‘why is there suffering if there is a God’ is the line that life does not gain meaning from wealth, happiness, toil, oppression, slavery, hunger, life or death but rather is about the eternal matter of knowing God. This relates well to the idea that it is the showing of love, not the relief of hunger, oppression or pain that is important. Whilst we show love through doing these things for others, it is the love that is the point of what we do. The means are the actions we do, the end is the love we show. Oppression and suffering are facts of life, they aren’t about to go away, they have to be lived with.

The freedom that knowing God brings transcends things like oppression and suffering. You can be free whilst still oppressed, have peace whilst embattled.

Now a question that I see as deeply linked with the above is ‘how can we show God to people’?

One thing that most Christians seem to do is to attempt to change people by imposing laws on them. Many Christians see value in trying to get ‘good’ laws brought in. This is because they see that those laws can bring a ‘good’ result and relieve things such as oppression, slavery, hunger or death…

…oh, aren’t those the things that we said weren’t actually meaningful in the big picture and that it was only showing love that was meaningful?

So perhaps imposing our morals on others isn’t beneficial to them because it doesn’t bring people into a relationship with God… Perhaps only showing love is actually beneficial?

I’ve put the word ‘good’ into single quote marks above because I’m using it from a very human perspective of what good is which contrasts with what I believe God’s view of good is. I believe that the only way to do good in God’s eyes is to do His will – doing ‘good’ things isn’t actually good if it isn’t out of obedience to God.