suffering Archives - Keith Shields

Job and Retribution Theology

One of the strongest impulses within most of us is the belief that good people are rewarded, and bad people are punished. There is an immediacy to it. When bad things begin to happen to us, we quickly ask, “What did I ever do to deserve this?” When someone else is suffering in life, there…

Glory or Horror

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.” Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, 1952. “The internal struggle continued. Who was it that had killed him? Well, first he had to decide who he was himself. Was Ray the good guy or the bad guy in this TV series? Was…

Faith and Resistibility

I often find myself in situations in which people ask me questions about faith. The questions come in many forms: “Why are you a pastor and not a scientist?” “Why do you still dabble in science when you are a pastor?” “How can you believe in a Creator in this scientific world?” “How can you…

River Otter Education

I have previously written about how adult Osprey teach their young to fly and said that it is delicate business because they really only get one chance to try and there can be no failures. Recently, I saw some video of a mother river otter teaching her pup to swim. The pups are born without…

The Problem of Pain

“After the Lord your God has done this for you, don’t say in your hearts, ‘The Lord has given us this land because we are such good people!’ No, it is because of the wickedness of the other nations that he is pushing them out of your way. It is not because you are so good or have such integrity…

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

A friend of mine is in the hospital right now and is undergoing chemo-therapy and a bone marrow transplant to rescue him from cancer. In the midst of it, they did an MRI of his brain and discovered a tumour outside of the brain but inside of the head. You might ask, “Why would one…

Forgiveness

At a time when racism, violence, and suffering seem to be greater than ever, these words of Fyodor Dostoyevsky are very appropriate. “I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication…

In the World But Not of the World

Thomas Merton’s classic book, The Seven Storey Mountain is a helpful commentary on how one can live a spiritual life despite pressures in the opposite direction. Merton knew how to live in the world without being swallowed up by the world. He has much to show us about the balance between solitude from and solidarity…

The Paradox of Suffering and God’s Love

A few days ago I wrote an entry entitled “Sacrifices” to remind us that God wants our trust more than he desires sacrifices from us. The blog was prompted by our common desire to do something for God in order that we might get back into good relationship him, specifically when we experience suffering and…

Millions and Billions

When I was a teenager in Canada there was a time when many people were talking about the concept of a million. People would wave their lottery ticket and talk about how wealthy they would be when they won a million dollars. They talked about government debts that were measured in millions of dollars. People…