A thought on suffering

I was asked this evening 'how does your faith help you when you are suffering?' After a bit of thought I gave the follwing answer:

I'm normally quite happy with life. I'm happy to keep going - doing what I need to do and focussing on achieving stuff. It is when stuff goes wrong that I have a tendency to stop and think. I start to analyse myself to find out why things went wrong and then I can start to become self obsessed.

My faith encourages me to look not at myself but at God. It tells me that even although things feel rubbish there is something bigger going on than I could ever realise. It tells me to focus on the glory of God even when I want to focus on myself.

It is only when I stop being self-obsessed that my failure to find a nice job fits into place compared with the problems in the world. It is only when I become God-obsessed that the problems in the world fit into place compared with his glory, his majesty and his wisdom.

Suffering is still there, it just looks a lot more managable through God's eyes.