[kosta50]

Wonderfully worded. I have nothing to add to your post, Kolo. I just want to offer a couple of ideas of what suffering accomplishes: suffering allows us to forgive those who persecute us, or to be able to say "Thy Will be done!" with peace; it allows us to foresake the earthly and embrace the heavenly; it allows us to pray for those who trouble us; it allows us to be Christ-like!

The idea that suffering is what God demands from us in order to "repay" Him our debts for sin, that is a portrait of an angry and insulted God, which is alien to Eastern Christianity.

[NYer]

Thank you both for your insight. I still have much to learn from the East. ('Lives of the Desert Fathers'has been shipped and should be here soon!)

The idea that suffering is what God demands from us in order to "repay" Him our debts for sin, that is a portrait of an angry and insulted God, which is alien to Eastern Christianity.

This notion is a bit skewed. I have never been taught that God demands suffering. Rather, it is the concept of an individual 'offering' suffering up for their own transgressions or those of others.