FAITH OR FATE?
The severity of this concept has slipped our minds. In the modern world, fate is frequently implored to justify positive developments or to justify negative ones: “Everything happens for a reason.” Attributing one’s circumstances to the greater course of a wise world has a certain consoling effect. Yet if everything occurs for a reason, then the opposite side of the ledger must also be taken into account. These are the things that have little to do with our control and make life tragic, such as sickness, incapacity, poverty, loss, grief, trauma, and violence. If happiness is cosmically deserving, then suffering must also be, which becomes harder to argue when staring into the eyes of the victim. Fate has no mercy.
But nothing will ever excuse the fact that some people suffer more than others for no apparent reason. One of the most difficult things in life to accept is when that person is you. The Book of Job in the Bible touches on the subject. The fate of suffering is one that Job must accept. But, there is a chance for breakthrough within that acceptance. This reality is not widely received in contemporary societal and cultural discourse. It could come off as tragic or “pessimistic”, an attempt to minimise or even justify the suffering of others.
Our society and culture place so much emphasis on giving moral justifications for the suffering of mankind in the hope of receiving a breakthrough. But if we are too preoccupied with the pain of the world as a whole, we risk ignoring the suffering that is occurring directly before our very eyes, within us, and around us. There is a specific type of suffering that does not have a clear moral justification, arising from God, nature, or reality itself, and does not conform to any convincing good versus evil tale. Others can only watch it or, if they can, try to lessen it via their words and deeds. It’s almost fate for those of us who must bear this cross.
Suffering does not, in my opinion, grant moral superiority or virtue. The way we respond to it will determine if it bestows any wisdom or a new view to life. The way we deal with suffering defines if it confers wisdom on us. Being conscious or aware is suffering. In the course of evolution, we have to go through pain in order to learn what to do and what not to do. I believe that people still have time to learn from their experiences and something is attempting to convey to us that somewhere in the future, we exist, and that only us can become that, and our future selves beams at us, and hope we prevail.
We should try to minimise or overcome suffering and pain whenever and however we can through faith because it is unpleasant. I believe that the more pain we endure without losing consciousness, the more deeply our capacity to experience joy becomes -”The pain that you have been feeling cannot compare to the joy that is coming”, says Romans 8:8.
A strong character is essentially defined by how much one can endure without losing faith in God. We can regard everything that happens to us as a challenge to step up and put our faith to the test. Our humanity could be at stake, we can persevere not to go down without a fight if going down is inevitable.
Everyone has a fate. This does not imply that anything is fixed. Defeatism is for those who have given up, and I haven’t—otherwise, I wouldn’t still be alive—so I can’t be considered a fatalist. Accepting what is, as it is, allows us to surrender to the power of life, which is far more potent than anything the human mind could imagine. This kind of change is possible because it is an active acceptance rather than a passive one.
According to James Baldwin, “Not everything that is faced can be altered, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Sometimes life awakens the dormant human soul through coincidence or design. We are capable of so much more than we now are. There are a whole new range of possibilities inside the confines of our existence that we had never before contemplated realising. And by making those possibilities a reality, they also become our fate.
