The world needs a robust understanding injustice and suffering, otherwise we will inevitably prescribe the wrong cure for our pain. I remember that before I was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance, the doctor initially though that I needed to go on a high fibre diet. So I was eating tons of breads and grains, in other words, tons of gluten! It was making my condition worse. Jesus understood how discouraging this world could be, and in teaching us to pray did not evade or avoid this human reality, but taught us to pray in a way that faces injustice and suffering head on. This is of course the second petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your Kingdom Come.”
