In the secular view, suffering is never seen as a meaningful part of life but only as an interruption.
Interpretation
Suffering is often viewed as an obstacle rather than a significant aspect of life.
Timothy Keller suggests that in secular perspectives, suffering is merely perceived as an inconvenience that disrupts life's flow, lacking any inherent meaning or value. This view contrasts with perspectives that embrace suffering as an integral element of the human experience, offering growth and depth to life.
In practice
In a discussion about resilience, this quote can highlight the role of suffering in personal development.
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.
People only say I'm angry because I'm black and I'm a woman. But all sorts of people write with strong feeling, the way I do.
Your numbness is something perhaps you cannot help. It is what the world has done to you. But your coldness. That is what you do to the world.
Sweet Memory! wafted by thy gentle gale, Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail.
To regard the fundamental as the essence, to regard things as coarse, to regard accumulation as deficiency, and to dwell quietly alone with the spiritual and the intelligent - herein lie the techniques of Tao of the ancients.
Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly all nature seeks God and works toward [God].
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
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