Suffering: Max Wants To End It All

(intense music) I feel it every day, a pain deep inside. It just won't go away. I don't know if you can see, but inside I'm suffering. God, (chuckles) why do I feel this way? I don't have anyone that understands. If you love me, why do I feel this pain all the time? (soft music) I have a secret. All my life, I've had questions about my faith, about God, about religion. But now, I'm gonna tell you my struggles. I'm gonna tell you my questions and my doubts. I just hope you can handle the truth. (catchy music) Before I was born, my dad would hit my mom. He showed me that he didn't care about me, that he didn't love me. I found out from my mom that he kicked her in the stomach and I don't know 100%, but that was part of the reason that he made me like this. Brain-damage, because the abuse. So from a young age, I felt like no one cared. That's when things kept happening, but I kept pushing. Scene four, take two, mark. All right, here we go. And action. Before I start, let me say one thing. No... Sorry. Are you all good? Let's step back. Standby, standby, standby. And action. Before I start, let me say one thing. No explanation, no theory, no well-thought-out answer can take away the pain of your suffering. That's not hopelessness talking. It's honesty, just being real. (gentle music) The question of suffering is the oldest question in the world. The oldest book in the Bible, Job, is an 18,000 word debate that questions the ancient mysteries of God's ways, whose ways are not like our ways. 42 chapters of wrestling with the ancient mystery. What kind of loving God would allow bad things to happen to people? And the hardest part is that for thousands of years, book after book, study after study, everyone who has looked into this question has come to the same conclusion: there is no easy answer. (books clattering) It can seem so unfair. Cut. (intense music) When I was younger, kids bullied me because of who I am. This is the rock they'd throw at me. It made me angry, angry at them, at my dad, especially God. But I had all this hate bottled up inside, so I gave up on God. If He was gonna allow all that, I was like, "Who needs Him?" Scene six, take three, mark. (gentle music) Settle in, and action. Robots don't get to make their own choices. We control them. They're just machines with no freedom, but that's not how God made us. He gave us the ability to make real choices, and those choices have real impact and meaning. We can choose evil with its consequences, but we can also choose to love and do good. God doesn't desire pain and suffering for his creation, but God also doesn't force us one way or the other or override us when we choose unwisely. This world is broken by evil: disease, disasters, death. It wasn't supposed to be this way. We tend to focus on why he allows evil and suffering, but forget that he also empowers us to love and do good. There are two sides to the story of free will. I was mad for a long time. Why did God have to let my mom die? Why did he leave me and my sister alone? Why did he let me get bullied? It was too much. I just wanted to end it all. But then, I know it sounds crazy, but I heard a voice. "Max, what are you doing?" It was so real, but nobody was there. It was God's voice. "I love you, Max. Don't end your life." God was telling me to keep living. (peaceful music) That's when I discovered a camera. I'm not good at writing, but my pastor noticed that I have an eye for photography. And a few weeks after God spoke to me, he gave me this camera as a gift. By taking pictures, he said, I can express myself, show who I am, who other people are by taking the picture of them, their life in a new, beautiful way. This one lady was, like so happy that I took her picture. She told me she'd been lonely and having a hard time. That made her feel special. She actually hugged me, and I was like, "Man, maybe God can use me to help relieve some other people's pain, to use all that I've been through to help them." Jesus understands my suffering because he suffered too. It's not meaningless. Suffering can still feel lonely. It can isolate us, but God's love connects and empowers us. Even when we're hurt or broken, we're not abandoned by God. He always planned to suffer with us and for us. And when we look for Him in the midst of our suffering, we can know God in a richer way, and that's the bigger picture. (catchy music)