November 7, 1986

• Suffering: its randomness and opportunity

• God does not keep score

• Suffering is not punishment for sin

God blesses the souls of each one of you, illuminating them with such intense light and warming them with the depth of God’s love.

You have indeed raised many questions this evening, concerns not just of an academic nature, but concerns which touch upon the very essence of human life. You’ve discussed suffering, and you wonder about the randomness of life which so often distributes suffering unequally among all of humankind. We would like to address the subject of suffering and life’s randomness this evening. The two subjects are basically a single issue, namely that of the distribution and handling of suffering.

To begin with, you must recognize that suffering is not entirely random. As a matter of fact, what happens in life is the result often of nonrandom actions coming in contact with human life, whose only randomness is timing. As was observed, much that could be mistaken as randomness is a result, a direct one, of the very act of living human lives. You do not choose to suffer. God does not will that you must suffer. But in many ways the nature of your current lives is directly influenced by the activity which you have engaged in in this current life.

When individuals are severely injured by a random bullet, that injury was not ordained or predetermined or planned to happen. But the fact that the individuals were where they were at the time of the injury is the result of many events in their life. God does not plan for someone to be a participant in a life-threatening event, but God does provide an environment for the spirit, enabling the spirit to grow as a result of what has happened.

In human life events occur which cannot be explained, but that does not imply that there is no explanation. It means only that there is no understanding of the explanation. What is today understood as science was considered yesterday as mystery, magic, sorcery. As time goes on, understanding increases, and the mystery is rolled back as truth is revealed. Not everything in life can be explained by science, that you know. Events of nature occur as the direct result of a sequence of conditions. Certain conditions must be met for some event to occur. That is not random. It is totally logical and ultimately predictable. The effect of those events upon humans is controlled by the level by which the humans experience those events. Such levels are influenced often by matters of timing. The issue of timing, therefore, may frequently be considered as random.

It is not God’s intention that life should be in all ways sequentially explainable. The nature of earthly life, of human life, incorporates chance to a degree. It must, for God does not plan virtually all events. That is not God’s purpose. As you know, one of the great characteristics of life is choice. An individual may choose one path or another. The alternatives which are related to those individual and respective paths may be determined by God.

Do not expect to control your lives completely, for that is not their purpose. The purpose of your lives is growth through experiencing, adapting, developing. That’s what ultimately happens. Because you cannot control all facets of your life, you must accept the reality, the necessity of living as best you can with what takes place.

There are many on earth who suffer inordinately, whose share of disappointment is far greater than their neighbors’. For centuries upon centuries humans have sought to explain this. Too often the explanation which emerges is one of punishment by God for some wrongdoing. Some may believe that wrongdoing was done in this life; some may believe it was the result of a wrongdoing in a prior life. Such an approach totally abandons the concept that God does not punish. God does not maintain a debt ledger for every soul. No score is being kept. No moment shall come when you stand to be judged for being saved or eternally damned. It is a sincere explanation that many hold deeply to as a way of dealing with what suffering is all about, and why one must be good rather than evil. But such a supposition of the judgment of God is incorrect, and therefore one cannot deal with one’s own suffering or the suffering of another as being punishment.

Human beings often place themselves in a position to be particularly available for suffering, but that is not an explanation for all suffering. There are many who suffer and are totally innocent of wrongdoing. Despite that innocence, they must still recognize that the suffering has a purpose. They are placed in a situation in time where they can grow or choose not to grow. Many are not able to grow. Many find it beyond their understanding to know how to grow. Others decide it is best not to seek growth because it, too, may have its own suffering.

The randomness of life which is most prevalent, as we have said, is timing. If an individual is struck by a tree which falls, the individual is in that place as a result of many decisions and influences related to that individual. The tree falls because that is the end action of a sequence of influences. The timing which brings both entities together is random. That randomness is part of what God has placed into the nature of earthly life. The individual who suffers as a result of the falling tree may grow from the experience or not. The choice is the individual’s. If the person dies, the choice remains. There is still room for growth. If the individual lives, that person must also choose how to find direction and purpose in a life which may be greatly altered from the individual’s original intentions.

An individual who has the great misfortune of suffering from birth defects is not being punished, for those defects began from conception. Where can there be punishment? No one is being punished. The defects are the result of a natural sequence of events. Something goes wrong, and the sequence is begun. The results are the defects.

The randomness of time is that such suffering must be shared by others, but that sharing provides the potential for growth and must ultimately be looked upon in such a manner. There is no room for guilt, but only compassion and sensitivity and love. When countless numbers of people are starving, there is no punishment there, but their lives just happen to be centered in a location at a time when certain natural events occur. They can find ways of growing or they can give up. The choice is theirs. It is God who ultimately plants the awareness of a choice in their minds. We emphasize this because there are many who are not aware of a choice. They just exist; they cope.

You must look upon suffering as an opportunity. You must look on those who experience such suffering not as targets of God, singled out, but as souls provided with great opportunity, but frequently at a terrible price—terrible in that they are drawn to the breaking point. They can choose to endure and to grow, searching for meaning and direction, or they can reject it. That is God’s gift of choice.

There are none of you on earth who are more favored or more cursed than another. All lives have equal value, but all lives do not have equal opportunity. It is frequently humankind that alters opportunity. It is only God who ensures equal value.

This is an extraordinarily difficult subject for anyone to comprehend. It is easier for us to explain to you what suffering is not than to explain why suffering is. God is not powerless. If in God’s wisdom it were essential that all suffering be equally shared by everyone, it would be so shared. The fact that it is not equally shared provides an opportunity for everyone to achieve a greater understanding of God’s influence in life, for all are ultimately drawn to the issue of why some suffer more than others. In dealing with that issue, one has a greater understanding of God’s presence. If everyone suffered the same, life would be covered by such a fatalistic color that little progress could be made in spiritual growth. In the end you grow by how you handle what you are offered in life—your response to your own life, your response to the lives of others. It is a constantly changing kaleidoscope of events. In dealing with that kaleidoscope, your souls broaden and deepen and strengthen.

God does not want one to suffer more than another. It is not God’s will. For those who suffer disproportionately, the strength of God’s love appears to us to be even brighter. It is of course the same—it is only that God must reach deeper into the souls of those who feel themselves more removed from God. God’s love is constant; God’s presence is constant. Nothing will ever change that—nothing which you do, nothing which ever happens to you, nothing which ever happens to those you love, to all who are around you.

Our prayers at this moment are for your growing and understanding of this important subject. It cannot be studied lightly or quickly, and hopefully it will provide more questions than answers, for in seeking a resolution to those questions, you will achieve a far deeper sense of your own worth, the value of life, and the love of God.

And now we bless you with God’s love.

Amen.