How to suffer. I’m repurposing a blog I wrote in 2019 with some additional thoughts at the end. This is very real and pertinent to me right now.

How to suffer well. Isn’t that a cheerful thought?

I’ve given this a lot of thought recently. Because, taken on its face, that makes God out to be some sort of cosmic ogre. It makes Him sound like a wicked potentate, demanding His pound of flesh.

Fact is, God is a god of mercy and justice. So how does suffering fit in? Does God indeed choose to crush you?

Yep. For the believer, it’s not optional.

Here’s what spurred this thinking for me. It grew out of a re-reading of the classic “suffering servant” passage in Isaiah 53 which is a prophetic foreshadowing of Jesus’ crucifixion. I’ve read this passage a gazillion times, I’m sure, and have often winced when reading verse 10.

Speaking of Jesus, Isaiah says, “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer …”

So I thought, man, poor Jesus. I know it was all part of The Plan, but it was for a redemptive cause – his life was to be an offering for sin.

(I’d add that it’s this line of thinking which causes some non-believers to balk at the Christian faith. “I mean,” they say, “what can you say about a god who would crucify his own son?” We could unpack that later.)

Are there, then, times when God chooses for you to suffer?

I’ve concluded that yes, indeed, there is.

Understand that being crushed by God doesn’t mean that your life is an offering for sin. That role has already been fulfilled. This isn’t about you being that kind of martyr.

To illustrate, I’ll need to go all autobiographical on ya. Thanks for indulging me. I have a reason for being personal…

… but I’m not looking for pity.

You may know that in June of 2018 I sustained a nasty concussion. Concussions happen all the time. But in about a third of concussion cases, the victim incurs what is called Post Concussion Syndrome. The issues are complex, but the bottom line is that it’s not a quick recovery. Some days I feel like a poster child for PCS.

I do think I’m better. People tell me they’re seeing more of the old Tony, and I appreciate that so! I don’t necessarily feel it, but I’ll go with the bright days I do have.

Besides the apocalyptic migraines that have come with it, the cognitive issues, and other fun symptoms, the worst has been the darkest, blackest, depressed funk you can imagine. That, too, has been held mostly at bay. Yay for good meds! Better living through pharmaceuticals, right?

What that has done, though, has given me a fresh empathy for those facing mental illness in general and depression specifically. I get it.

Here’s where it gets messy, though.

For those who aren’t familiar with mental illness – either their own or by observing someone dealing with it – it is so, so easy to pass judgement.

Here’s what sufferers hear. I know experientially what I’m talking about:

”Shouldn’t you be over it by now?”

”Cheer up. There are plenty of people worse off than you are.”

” Just have more faith.”

Yeah, that’s really helpful.

The worst, for me personally, is the vibe that I get from some people who think I’m trying to get away with something. There’s no visible sign of illness, so you have to be working a scam, right?

You get cancer, or you get heart disease, and no one asks, “what did you do?” You get depression or other mental illness, and they ask, “who sinned, this man or his parents?”

I could go on, but I’d come across as a whiner.

I don’t want to be a whiner.

Back to my thesis – does God choose for us to suffer? What do you do when God chooses to crush you (and I believe He does)?

If you feel crushed by God, you are not the first, nor are you alone.

I won’t take time right now to talk about David, that man after God’s own heart, but I can tell you that he just flat-out despaired. Check out Psalms 13, 22, 38, and 42 for starters.

I don’t want to get bogged down in theological weeds. Let me be as honest as I know how to be. I think this will help someone today.

I knew the Gospel. I knew all the right answers. I’ve taught the truth as best as I knew how.

But what I have recently learned is that there is a refining work of God that can only come though moments of despair. Sometimes, you just have to suffer.

This: I believe that God, in His mercy, has caused me to suffer.

Know why? It may be that I entered a season that I needed to suffer with Him. I could sit back and be all academic about suffering, or I could experience it first hand.

Here’s what’s happened. Because He’s crushed me, the faith He gives me is now stronger, more focused, and has astonishing clarity.

By walking through days that are a slog, and facing nights that are unusually long, I see things I never saw before.

By spending time in darkness, I am coming to understand what the light of Christ is all about.

When you say depression is just evidence of a weak faith, then you’re forgetting that Jesus Himself knew horrific sorrow. Not only did He endure despair (and was forsaken by God!) He even bore all our sorrows.

The takeaway? God sometimes chooses for you to suffer. But His love for us never changes. It’s in Him we place our hope.

Some new thoughts:

• Christianity doesn’t give us a free pass out of suffering. You will suffer. I guarantee it. It’s right and proper to acknowledge you’re hurting, and hurting bad. Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean your suffering will be any easier or more endurable What it does mean is that you can see your suffering as one point in a timeline that stretches out into eternity. For Christians, that means that the best is still ahead of us.
• The real reward for suffering is what God does in us and through us. I’ve already spoken about this. But there’s an intimacy with God that happens amidst our suffering that only suffering can produce. It puts our feet on solid ground and not shifting sand. Our souls are touched by God Himself, who is always with us in our suffering.

God allows you (and me) to suffer. Ever wonder why?

That’s a tough one. While I’ve addressed this in my blog before, it bears revisiting. Man, I hate to even bring it up. And yet – folks sure do seem to be hurting a lot these days. They’re frustrated, afraid, and wear worry like a shroud. 

I’d be presumptuous to try to define suffering for you – what is agonizing for you might not be a big deal for me, and vice-versa. 

Those questions – why is this happening to me? Is God testing me? – can be mighty troubling, especially when answers don’t seem to be forthcoming. 

If God allows you to suffer, something is happening. And we don’t ask those questions when things are going well. 

We ask them when we’re hurting, backed into a corner, and when in general life is going badly.

There are also degrees of suffering. If the AC goes out in our house in August, and fans just don’t move the air around, then I might say that I’m suffering. If I sprain my ankle, I might call that suffering. If I have cancer and I’m racked by excruciating pain, that’s suffering, right? If someone I love is dying of some dread disease, and I’m watching their life flow away in a toxic stream, then both of us might well be suffering. 

If you’re a believer, then God allows you to suffer, too, and your faith in Christ doesn’t mean a grief-free life.That, incidentally, is one reason many folks just reject Christianity outright. 

Y’all, there’s a tenet of our faith that we often overlook or ignore, and it can strike into the heart of the very devout. Intellectually, you may know better, but when life happens, all that ethereal head knowledge can just vanish. You are going to suffer, and God is going to allow it. 

Many Christians, perhaps even most, believe that if they are God’s child, then things should go well. Suffering? Nope. They think they’re exempt. I mean, if they’re a believer, if they are living for Him, if they’re good people, then all should be fine. 

Before you get all up in my face, saying, “I know that. I understand that. That’s Chrisitianity 101,”  do a quick gut-check. Have you ever asked “Why me? What have I done? Do I have some unconfessed sin in my life and this is payback from God?”

Well, there is sowing and reaping to consider. Most of the grief in our lives we bring on ourselves because we’ve wilfully made some idiotic choices. There is, however, plenty of evidence and first-hand experience that informs us that suffering comes in spite of our wise choices, pure intentions, and relationship with God.

That God allows you to suffer is clear. But why do we suffer in this world?

I love a numbered list. Let me offer four reasons why we suffer. Maybe this will help, but in the face of such a profound and mysterious truth, I’m not going to be able to give you any fresh revelations. These are things you already know, but I’m sharing these as simple reminders. 

 

1. We live in a broken world, and so we struggle. Think about mental struggles – we are bombarded daily with horrific news. We spend too much time in our own heads. Our minds start kicking themselves. This, of course, dovetails with emotional struggles. We are depressed, anxious, and in a funk. See how these feed on each other? Physically? We eat wrong when we’re dealing with mental and emotional issues. We become sedentary, or else turn into gym rats, losing ourselves in fitness, running, etc. (and hear me – I’m for sure not dissing any of these disciplines. It’s just when they’re used as escape tools that we might have problems.) Finally, how about spiritual struggles? You know, when God seems distant and silent and when our prayers don’t get any further than ceiling height. All these can be evidence of our living in a broken world.
2. There is abundant evil in the world. We call that sin, and it’s in us and those around us. Sin brings suffering – ultimately, it brings death. Often we embrace sin because, let’s face it, it’s fun. For a season, anyway. It’s our sin, and others’ sin, that brings on suffering in the world. Fact.
3. God allows suffering. I can’t stress this too much. Of course He could end all suffering. Guess what? He’s going to. In the realm of the mysterious, in the providence of an all-knowing and all-loving God, suffering will be annihilated. Jesus will return. We don’t know when, and while it can be an intriguing pastime to try to discern when, the best approach is to simply say “soon,” which, of course, is true. 
4. Suffering makes God’s love and grace even that much more sweet. Think about this. Let’s say Sunday your preacher shares a sermon that talks about God’s love. You appreciate and affirm it. It gives you all the feels. But – what if a person dying with cancer in the final hours of their life talks about God’s love, don’t you think you’d respond differently? Or, perhaps, someone gets a generous and unexpected tax refund, and they say, “I’m so blessed!” Compare that to a woman in Haiti I heard about, and her most prized possession was a big bucket – she was able to cook in it, haul water in it, wash clothes in it. And she said, “I’m so blessed.” Is there a bit of a difference you see?

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes comes into play as you realize God allows you to suffer:

We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

A deaf world, indeed. It might just be that the world we currently live in is being molded by God into something that will really, really get our attention.

I’ve tried, over the years, not to evaluate anything in my life apart from the backdrop of the cross. If I’m suffering, and I think I’m being punished, I have to remind myself – nope, Jesus took my punishment. Or if I’m tempted to think that God doesn’t care, then I remind myself – hey, Tony, God does care. He’s lost a son because He loved you. 

I suppose when you resolutely deal with knowing God allows you to suffer, you come to understand that God loves you definitively because of Calvary.

He will use the junk you’re going through for your good and the good of those around you. You will never walk alone. 

We are going to suffer in this world. Count on that. We don’t have to wish it on ourselves – that’s sort of weird – but we need to be ready for it. We can love God in good times, and we can love God when we’re hurting. And we should call others to share in the ultimate victory that Jesus won for us … because He, too, suffered. 

Talk later!