Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that suffering has a significant purpose and meaning within a Christian context, contrasting various beliefs about suffering.
Timothy Keller's quote explores the nature of suffering from a Christian perspective, asserting that while suffering is profound and often arbitrary, it is not meaningless. He argues that, unlike fatalism or secular views, Christianity provides a framework to understand suffering as a path to deeper connection with God and as a source of spiritual strength, emphasizing the importance of facing suffering with the right mindset.
In practice
In a sermon discussing coping with life's struggles, this quote could be used to inspire hope.
Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there.
Only in Jesus Christ do we see how the untamable, infinite God can become a baby and a loving Savior. On the cross we see how both the love and the holiness of God can be fulfilled at once.
All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause.
While your character flaws may have created mild problems for other people, they will create major problems for your spouse and your marriage.
To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.
God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we're not yet what we will be, we're also no longer what we used to be.
Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started.
We create our fate every day . . . most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior.
The man smiled at him a sly smile. As if they knew a secret between them, these two. Something of age and youth and their claims and the justice of those claims. And of their claims upon them. The world past, the world to come. Their common transciencies. Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one.
It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.
It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted and only a few things forbidden.
Those opposed to abortion cannot simply invoke God's will-they have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths.
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