I must say that so far I am Very pleased that we chose spirituality as the topic for Season 9! This week we have hit new records for engagement, with over 150 of you taking part in this weeks QOTW. From all walks of life, so many religions, perspectives and locations.. you have all poured your hearts and souls into your posts. It has taken me many hours to go through them all :)! so, forgive me for not commenting on them all ... But i have read them all and have decided to present this weeks tie up post as short quotes from most of your posts.
There was so much wisdom, and thought in these posts, and many from Christians and Muslims. It was so good to read and learn from your words, and also very good to see that no one is criticising anyone else for their own beliefs. All beliefs are welcome at ecoTrain and all get the respect they command.

SO without further ado, here is a very long list of awesome quotes from your posts I think this is a great way to digest so much information and really makes it easy to see how our views contrast. Thank you SO much to everyone who took part this week. If the growth of the QOTW continues I will have to start getting some help! Please do comment if you are interested in helping me to curate in general as its a very fun job with so many great posts to read through. I’m also happy to say that the quality was very high almost across the board!

Great Quotes From Your Posts!
THANK YOU!

@ford.stem
God is not meant for reacting to our weal or woes,rather God is a far reaching invisible force and finding him is not easy and near impossible. Only his presence can be felt through meditation and spiritual search of soul.

@rightround
f a man who believes in God, he can live his life in any condition, he is completely satisfied with his circumstances. Life is a test, it is a very difficult test and only those who are always successful in this test will achieve happiness in the next life.

@abdul-qudus
There is a saying that goes thus “if you are born poor, it is never your fault. But if you die poor, it’s your fault”. And there is another saying that “happiness is free, you don’t have to pay to be happy”.

@thescribe72
God is love ad love is God for he so loved the world to give His only begotten son for our redemption

@morenow
In a simple and personal way I can say, God creates individuals or beautiful and heavenly beings, perfect but with free will, and the enemy that God contaminates his creation like a virus and that is when suffering and everything dark and harmful appears, then God creates the cure for that virus.

@joseph23
What matters in our life struggle, is our ability to accept the things we can't change while working towards those we can. For example, We can't change the fact that suffering will come our way, but we can change the way the suffering affects us.

@katleya
We are human ..... So the suffering we see I think changes when we change the way we see and feel about life.

@yaziris
Why is there only this little suffering in a universe that is literally a ball of fire ever expanding into a beyond freezing nothingness, and how did we come to even exist in?

@acont
In the animal world there is suffering, animals that feed on others. And it is difficult to know how conscious animals are that they make others suffer. But I think in the case of human beings we are somehow able to "intellectualize" occurring phenomena and try to avoid future suffering, that's why science exists. We are able to predict some natural phenomena, such as tsunamis.

@elshammah
God has automated life to give us what we want or deserve in return for what effort we put into the course of our activities in life, so it's left for us to either take it, or live it.

God may want us to experience, understand and value what it means to be happy and joyous. If we have this understanding we'd see the need to avoid everything that will make us walk in the path of suffering. We'd always look forward to him for favor and blessings rather than acting like Adam and Eve who were disobedient to him at the beginning of the world.

@williams-owb
God may want us to experience, understand and value what it means to be happy and joyous. If we have this understanding we'd see the need to avoid everything that will make us walk in the path of suffering. We'd always look forward to him for favor and blessings rather than acting like Adam and Eve who were disobedient to him at the beginning of the world.

@chishti
If Allah Almighty has created us then there will be a purpose for our creation.

@raizayanez
We are in the process of positive changes for a better world, let us learn to make better people, better citizens, fostering peace, prosperity and sustainable development.

@abmakko
DO WE REALLY KNOW WHO GOD IS?. I think this is a very important question because one of the nature of man is our sense of self-importance, we really think we know everything and anything there is to know, we believe that the whole universe is centered around us.

@giapel86
In life, if we had never experienced pain, we would not know how delicious joy is, because we would be used to it and it would be normal.

@dynamicgreentk
God is unexplainable and is not responsible for our actions or desires. Suffering can be due to our worldly desires and maybe a desire for something greater than ourselves in this linear materialistic world can help us understand that suffering is only a perception rising from our physical limitations.

@doudoer
If God, an omnipotent being, wanted to eliminate evil and suffering from our planet, it would be as simple as eliminating every human being from it.

@islamistrue
If a person has sufferings, then it is either a trial or the result of its previous actions that he has done in his life.

@cool08
Many people still think that the rich are enjoying it since they have money, undermining the aspect of what they have within them. Since God created us differently, we all have our respective ways of suffering. Some may have what it takes, but will one way or the other have one suffering within.

@peaq
When pain and suffering come upon us, we finally see not only that we are not in control of our lives but that we never were.
-Timothy Keller

@justinpencilz
After all the suffering here on earth we are going to enjoy the internal life with God where Satan will never have authority over us because we are not under his government Anymore.

@leedia
Suffering is already part of the world because we live in a fallen world where suffering has become a normality. I'm sure that's obviously not what God created or wants for us. Man (Adam and eve) literally turned this world to a fallen world with their sinful attitudes.

@elpastor
Because man has been disobedient to God's commandment and has had to bear the consequences of his sins. However, God has given the key for man to pass from suffering to happiness, and this key is Christ as the savior of the world, who came to die for the sins of mankind and provide to the believers in Christ.

@jaydr
The difference between a good man and a bad man is knowledge and time. And this is what God gives man, a soul for knowledge and a life span. HE is merciful enough to give everyone a chance to repent.

@irvinc
I am going to turn the question around: Why, with all the suffering in the world, are we still looking for God?

@scottclinton
The problem we are facing in this generation is that some people don't want to know do any things, they just relax and lazy thinking that manners will fall from heaven for them to enjoy.

@moex-photografy
Of course you have all the answers to some of my questions right? Likewise with the suffering you experience, it is the result of your own doing. You don't live life by the right rules, you are god, but ignore them. Will the boss at your office care and raise your position if you often skip work? Or will he even dismiss you dishonorably? Then who is the cause of the suffering?

@great-a
it is our decisions as humans that result in this much suffering remember that this God is a superior being but still very respectfully, he respects our decisions and most of the decisions made by man as led us to where we are today.

@johnolusegun
God exists and we human beings are the cause of some of the problem we have in the World today, God wants us to love one another but we are full of hatred and we find it hard to love ourselves and we are just too selfish.

@anamariag
It is easier to blame the one who takes away from us, that position of wanting to be gods. To imagine life with only the good, because we would already be living in the paradise that he offers us, however he allows the bad to know how to distinguish the good.

@ezemann
God made man be a free moral agent. Giving him the independence to make choices and to live by them.

@zeleiracordero-2
We are a spark of Divine Energy and, as such, we possess characteristics of the Source that we can use to intervene in our reality, the issue is that imbued in the chaotic part of life and the lack of attention to the signals, we let ourselves be dragged by the current of ignorance, fear, and mental alteration: stress, anxiety, depression; darkening our consciousness and overshadowing our light.

@brujita18
Let us look around us and we will realize that we have "built" this world on our own, we were not given a perfect world and now let us look at how we are carrying it.

@helentee
Some people know God more when they are sick and they think they will die, they move closely to God and do their prayers well

@devania
spirituality is not only about being connected with our own essence, it is also about being responsible for our life and its impact on the world a

@debbie-ese
When we tell God to get rid of suffering or evil, do we know that by extension we are telling him to get rid of man because men are the ones that carry out these suffering.

@mandate
God exists doesn't mean there won't be sufferness, sometimes it is to Glorify himself and make people turn to him and also human needs to change their ways and exhibit more love to one another.

@preets
I have a firm belief in Reincarnation Yes we all know when we die we shed this body. But there is something that is never dead never born, always the same. That is the soul.

@eliudgnzlz
In ancient times thousands of sacrifices were made to worship the Gods and that was gratifying for them, to be taken as an offering and their relatives took it in the same way.

@clixmoney
Every alive creature has a proportion of suffering. That could be in form of events, or in form of health, or even in form of aging. That's why I can't say why that suffering is needed, but I'm sure that there is a reason behind anything happening. Maybe it's related to the reincarnation and the bad guys are punished that way. The most important is to know that everything has a reason to happen!

@mujahidbhatti
God is present everywhere and not a single leaf of a tree can be found by the will of God. These snowy mountains and ships are flying with the help of God.

@shemzy
God wants to show the world of man's failed system of government. He desire men to understand that we can only find true peace in Him and not men or our crafted philosophies.

@ellenklech
Man's suffering in this world can be attributed to so many things. It can be seen as a punishment for what man has done. It can also be seen as a necessary stage in life that ushers in greater rewards. It can also be seen as the choice made by man. In all, it is never God's plan for man to suffer. In fact, God is pained when he sees us suffering.

@marlenyaragua
God has not sent human beings to pollute and degrade Mother Earth. God is not responsible for the affectation of living beings in those disaster spaces. The action belongs to man and affects all living beings. Man degrades and contaminates Mother Nature and does not understand that by damaging her he is damaging himself. We are part of Mother Earth.

@harnah12
If there is no God, how can we explain our existence, and the existence of the world, most things happening in the world are beyond our understanding.

@ahmadcmk58
There is a God in the world and the troubles are human actions.

@slwzl
God does not create pain, he does not generate the responses of nature or phenomena, he does not expose us to suffering, he does not teach us sadness, hurtful words, he does not strike; all those things are answers, there are simply consequences of being, of existing, of evolving.

@eco-alex
We are here to experience all things. We have free will to do whatever we wish within this physical world. Live, choose, see how it feels to love, to be angry,. See how it feels to kill, to murder, and what happens to your soul. Discover who it is you really are, and what Love really means by discovering it. Each of us discovers what these things mean to us, in our own personal and unique way.

@ubani
God did not create man as a robot to do simple straight jobs. The principle of freewill he deposited in man is what makes man not to be just an automated being.

@saulos
The reality of the human being is very far from the dimension of God, we cannot even define it. The gift for humanity is only this life, after that there is nothing, that is where the gift of God ends.

@francistimothy
It's only when one dies that he actually gets free from suffering.

@joseantpp
Actually the idea of heaven and hell is not something that I accept as it is exposed by my religion, but I firmly believe that our soul transcends the body and goes to another condition in which you can see the path traveled by our soul, and the reason for things is unveiled.

@ghost.queen
Most people believe that this world is not our home, we are barely passing through to somewhere greater.

@ladytitan
Love heals and can heal our world. It's up to us to make our world better and safer. God has given us all we need. We just need to make the right choices.

@peckypeace
For this world not to suffer again we need to glean to Him, think like him, walk like him, love like him, be merciful like Him.

@iyimoga
People who are not suffering these days. Are they enjoying what they enjoy because they know God more than others or did they determine to get to where they are using the privilege given to them by God?

@aliakbar2
et's define God before moving on to the answer. God is a being who has the whole universe in his possession and is in everyone's heart. He knows the intention of every human being so that everything in this world including human being is under his control.

@pravesh0
I don't believe in God or how can I say this, I don't think that there is enough evidence to prove that there is God, at least not in the sense that most people define God.

@azamrai
Some people do not believe in the life of the hereafter and they prefer the life here and there are people in the world who believe that they will live the life after this, they do not prefer trouble in this world. They lead their lives to get better place in hereafter.

@favvygem
Why did God not destroy Adam and Eve and start over with another human pair?

@drceeyou
The nature of goodness is that goodness allows you choose... He wouldn't be good if he forced himself on you...

@mcluz59
Most of the suffering in the world right now is man created.

@coliva
His loves for us is unconditional love, GOD only needs us to be good sons and daughters, he needs our heart to be of good and not of evil, that is what he needs from us

@ovey10
Can we try to view Suffering as a Process? Yes it is! Whatever is in process is set to birth results at the end tail, processes doesn't last forever, they're meant to reform, reshape and give out results.

@bbjmed
God exists and He's not responsible for the sufferings of men but rather men are the creators of their own sufferings most of the time but God can intervene in all sufferings if approached in a proper way.

@adedayoolumide
Only if we surrender our lives to Him, we shall be free from suffering.

@ekotmordemy
The love of God is unconditional, is not a respecter of persons but he does not give room to whatever comes between his love.

@kirlos
The origin of this issue is due to man imbuing God with human qualities. Giving God human attributes by calling him good or bad is akin to calling him good or bad.

@mogollono1862
If a supreme being exists, it is not to solve our problems, he gives us a spirit, a soul, energy, capacities and life so that we can go through this short path in this physical plane.

@winniekal
It may be right to say that God is aware of all the challenges and sufferings of man because he's omnipresent and can see all things but most of them are caused by man through the choices we make.

@kirlos
People would not even be aware of the presence of violence if God deemed it to be a wicked deed and abolished it.

@uche-nna
Whatever the personal crisis we encounter, the issue of suffering is one of the toughest and hefty barriers that affect our faith in God. Furthermore on some occasions, doubt his existence.

@deraaa
When God created man, he only saw peace and harmony, love and contentment. However, he still gave man the freedom to be whatever or whoever they please. However, while giving them this choice, he warned them that he was holy and that his plans are good.

@bettybunny
In the holy Bible he gave us instructions would help us make things easier "the ten commandments"

@joshsticks28
In the beginning of mankind, God made all things bright and beautiful. He didn't create suffering for man. I believe man brought suffering upon themselves through sin. Of course there's God in heaven and he always watches over us day and night regardless of our closeness to him.

@carlynn
He gave us the free will to choose and if we decided to choose suffering then He respects our chooses and leaves us to face the consequences of our choice.

@mrenglish
Sometimes, we may face suffering in this world because of the lackadaisical attitudes of others. One time ago, there was a diarrhea outbreak in Lagos Nigeria. When it was traced, we came out with the result that some people were littering biological waste in the lagoon and seas.

@ehizgabriel
Many people believe in devil, witch craft powers, ghost and other gods are in existence, then why find it difficult to believe that God is real. We humans are the cause of our suffering, and why is that? Disobedience.

@huang-hsin
With effort and perseverance, you can change your life 180 degrees and create for yourself a new atmosphere of hope and optimism, and it all starts first inside your mind with believing in the idea and not giving in to it and striving first and finally, you will find the light at the end of the tunnel, and as I always remind you at the bottom of every post:

@rahiih
If people follow the rules and do good deeds will be free from all sufferings but it matters some time good people also have sufferings this is because God loves his creature and want to test him by making him suffer from issues and problems. If the creature shows patient against that suffering will be awarded by God on Resurrection.

@xcess12
The existence of God has nothing to do with the suffering of man.

@blesy
suffering doesn't necessarily mean God is heartless that He couldn't know what we're passing through at the moment but because we failed to take the rightful path that gives us access to approach Him diligently.

@etorobong
Suffering today in the life of mankind started from the time when man fall in the garden of eden.

@mhizfavour
God has played His part by moulding us and given us all we need to have a fulfilled life and this include the will and strength to be an achiever in various fields of our endeavours in life. So be obedient, purposefully plan and resist laziness.

@birjudanak
We all know we are from different religions and their different belief as in all religions learns to do good things with other, but it's not going happens to everyone and thus somehow it effects too. As told before that life is like roller coaster and thus things will never go smoothly every time.

@bunmiola
I believe suffering makes one to be more closer to ones God and worship him well.

@maykk
Everything is so perfectly synchronised, that it is impossible for it to be given by itself, although I do not agree that it is the driver of everything, that deity is only responsible for the universe and the spirit to exist.

@akintaiwo
All these happen and God is there. We all wondered. But let me say that we can't blame God for all these because they are all caused by man and he has given opportunity to do what we want whether good or bad.

@hive-world
There is so much suffering in the world today because most people don’t pay attention to GOD again.

oscarpower55