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"Why do men learn through pain and suffering, and not through pleasure and happiness? Very simply, because pleasure and happiness accustom one to satisfaction with the things given in this world, wheras pain and suffering drive one to seek a more profound happiness beyond the limitations of this world. I am at this time in some pain, and I call on the name of Jesus - not necessarily to relieve the pain, but that Jesus, in Whom alone we may transcend this world, may be with me during it, and His will be in me. But in pleasure I do not call on Him; I am content then with what I have, and I think I need no more. And why is a philosophy of pleasure untenable? ... because pleasure is impermanent and unreliable, and pain is inevitable. In pain and suffering Christ speaks to us, and thus God is kind to give them to us; yes, and evil too - for in all of these we glimpse something of what must lie beyond." - excerpt from NOT OF THIS WORLD, Fr Seraphim Rose, A Russian Orthodox theologian

In pain and suffering Christ speaks to us, and thus God is kind to give them to us; yes, and evil too - for in all of these we glimpse something of what must lie beyond.

This statement does not resemble my experience of God. God is sweetly generous to me, who deserves nothing from Him. Suffering is what I impose on myself when I sin or forget Him and His rightful place in my life. But that is my fault, not God's. If there are hard lessons I must learn, He is always there, always faithful. But He is not the author of sin as the Bible tells us. And in my experience, He is not to be considered the author of suffering. Nor am I certain that He finds any special merit in it. Christ calls us to new life and to freedom in Him, not to suffering. He has paid the price for us if we belong to Him.

It's not a perfect statement to answer any and all historical objections that might be brought against it but I thought I'd share with you a more common perspective from Western churches. At least, from any Protestant or Baptist or evangelical church I have heard of.

Nevertheless, there are some stories of people's lives in our traditions where they affirm that God taught them a great thing through a trial or suffering, something that was previously unknown to them and that they could have only learned through a trial of personal suffering. So, we are not solely some sort of spiritual hedonists as compared to the Eastern Orthodox. But a focus on asceticism or suffering is not central to a life of faith in the churches I'm aware of.