I would suggest that it is arrogant and destructive at worst, uncharitable at best, for us to seek to definitively interpret the suffering of others.  Jesus points us to a completely different paradigm. 

Back in the 1980’s when my wife and I were pursuing our Master’s degrees in music at Arizona State University, before we understood Reformed/Covenant Theology, we experienced first-hand a situation similar to what is given to us in the Gospel of John, chapter 9.  Seeing a blind man, the disciples ask:

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”[i]

Away from home, newly married, living on less than a shoe-string, we discovered we were expecting our first child.  The pregnancy was complicated and at one point we were told that we were losing our child.  After an ultra sound (that we couldn’t afford) confirmed our son was still living, I asked for prayer for our situation at church, only to be told:

“If you were a better covering for your wife, none of this would be happening!”

Insert knife…TWIST![ii]

John Calvin noted that we are “sharp critics of others”[iii]  If things are going badly for them, we assume it is the judgment of God.  However…if things go badly for us, we overlook our sins.

There is a sense where it is proper to understand all suffering as the result of sin.  Due to Adam and Eve’s sin, the world was cursed.[iv]  Death came into the world.[v]  Creation groans under the pain and weight of the perversion and damage incurred due to the curse.[vi]  However, to make a one-to-one correlation between an individual’s suffering and some unknown (but assumed) sin in the life of the sufferer or one related to him, is breath-takingly presumptive.  In fact, it is contrary to scripture:

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