Doubting the Benefit-- What Good is Suffering Anyway?

So I am in a hurry at the grocery store and I need to check out as quickly as possible.  I head straight for the express lane with my seven items (yes, I count them).  As I maneuver into position there is a young couple ahead of me with a month's worth of groceries laid out on the conveyor belt ahead of me. 

To my way of understanding, going through the express lane with more than the allowed ten items should be a capital offense, or at least a felony; the punishment should both deter and ensure that there are no repeat offenders.  There wasn't any point at even trying to count all the multitude of groceries stretched out ahead of mine; I could only glare at them.

I Corinthians 13:4-7 gives us the oft-quoted scripture from Paul defining love.  "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

Although it is not in this or other passages of scripture, one other message on love that I came across last week is, "Love gives others the benefit of the doubt."  Now, in my world, there are no shades of gray.  Things are either black or white, good or evil, saintly or wicked.  It is a stretch for me to see extenuating circumstances, although we would all, myself included, like to be given the benefit of the doubt when we fall short.  I have been blessed many times by others extending me this benefit.

Anyway, the cashier felt prompted to say something to these wretched violators of decency.  She admonished them, "Next time I will need you to use one of the regular lanes.  This lane is for ten items or less."  And the young couple, who were well-dressed and appeared educated, stared with mouths partly open at the express lane sign, saying "Oh.  We didn't know."

Well, talk about adding insult to injury.  I would have rather that they just completed their business and gone on their sinful way without trying to play dumb about it.  I mean, really, who in America above the age of two doesn't know what the express lane is for?  To stand there and pretend ignorance as an excuse for such uncivilized behavior was galling.  Please, just take your truckload of groceries and go.

The couple explained they were visiting from another country.  They really didn't know what an express lane was.  They apologized to the cashier, to me, and to the person in line behind me.  I had made a lot of assumptions in condemning them.  I had jumped to conclusions. I had not given them the benefit of the doubt. 

So, we who would all like to be shown the benefit of the doubt need to show it to others.  I think there is another scripture in there somewhere about, "...just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise."  And do we give our Lord the benefit of the doubt?

You see, when suffering comes upon us, we often see no good in it.  We don't trust God's plans for us, His love for us, His caring for us.  In these situations, when we do not give God the benefit of the doubt, we are doubting the benefit.  As it says in Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called to His purpose."  When we suffer, we must not jump to conclusions.  We must go back to those things His Word tells us, the things we know to be true.  We must remind ourselves that not only is God in control, but that He cares for us and will work all things for good.  What seems so cruel and unfair to us in our limited understanding is promised to us by Scripture to be for our eternal benefit, a benefit which we must not doubt.