Theology of Suffering in the North American Church

Suffering for christian takes two forms. The first one is self denial. When we want to do something that the bible explicitly or implicitly says is sinful, and we deny ourselves. That's how we walk with jesus to the cross. Small pee, persecution, big section. But that is a guaranteed place of encounter. I've never met a real atheist who's intellectually an atheist. It always starts in a moment of pain. Im so so to me, suffering is critical.