The Journeying Universe

Suffering. We've all thought about it. Whether its the ardent atheist or the doubting devotee, the existence of suffering seems to confound our notion of God.

If God is all good, all knowing, and all powerful, we reason... Wouldn't God want a universe with no suffering, know how to make it, and have the power to pull it off?

But here's the thing. Suffering doesn't disprove the movement of goodness in our world. In fact, that we get so indignant that suffering exists is actually a strange kind of proof in God's plan. We sense a wrongness about suffering precisely because the universe tends toward goodness.

The universe exists as a continual outpouring of love. True, sometimes things seem broken, but the true measure of the plan is in its culmination. Suffering is bound in time, and contextualized in the history of the world.

So, the next time the existence of suffering starts gnawing at you, remember: It's all good in the end. If it ain't all good, it ain't the end.

Or, said another way: Creation itself is forged by the unstoppable journey toward completeness.

Whichever way you say it, both represent the simultaneous sentiments of "This too shall pass," and "You ain't seen nothin' yet."