Suffering

Simple Definition of Suffering:

Suffering is having what you don’t want or wanting what you don’t have.

1. The Terrible Truth: It Is Through The Deepest Suffering God Has Taught Me The Deepest Lessons

The greatest gifts of my life have also entailed the greatest suffering.

Psalm 91:1–7

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,

my God, in whom I trust.”

3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler

and from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover you with his pinions,

and under his wings you will find refuge;

his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.

5 You will not fear the terror of the night,

nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,

nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

7 A thousand may fall at your side,

ten thousand at your right hand,

but it will not come near you.

Isaiah 43:2–3

2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

3 For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I give Egypt as your ransom,

Cush and Seba in exchange for you.

And I realized then that God was not telling me that everything was going to be fine, humanly speaking, that he was going to preserve my husband and bring him back to me. But he was giving me one unmistakeable promise: I will be with you. For I am the Lord Your God. He is the one who loved me and gave himself for me.

God’s love, which was represented, demonstrated to us in His giving His Son Jesus to die on the cross, have been brought together in harmony with suffering.

Romans 8:18–19

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

2. The Message: Be Still And Know That I Am God

C.S. Lewis: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

We would never ask the question why if we really believed that the whole universe was an accident and that you and I are completely at the mercy of chance.

Consider the third chapter of Lamentations, Job, Etc.

Lamentations 3:1–20

1 I am the man who has seen affliction

under the rod of his wrath;

2 he has driven and brought me

into darkness without any light;

3 surely against me he turns his hand

again and again the whole day long.

4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;

he has broken my bones;

5 he has besieged and enveloped me

with bitterness and tribulation;

6 he has made me dwell in darkness

like the dead of long ago.

7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;

he has made my chains heavy;

8 though I call and cry for help,

he shuts out my prayer;

9 he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;

he has made my paths crooked.

10 He is a bear lying in wait for me,

a lion in hiding;

11 he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces;

he has made me desolate;

12 he bent his bow and set me

as a target for his arrow.

13 He drove into my kidneys

the arrows of his quiver;

14 I have become the laughingstock of all peoples,

the object of their taunts all day long.

15 He has filled me with bitterness;

he has sated me with wormwood.

16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel,

and made me cower in ashes;

17 my soul is bereft of peace;

I have forgotten what happiness is;

18 so I say, “My endurance has perished;

so has my hope from the Lord.”

19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,

the wormwood and the gall!

20 My soul continually remembers it

and is bowed down within me.

Note the honest way we can speak to God, acknowledging God in the midst of suffering.

Almost all of the time in suffering, God does not answer the question of why, but instead, he offers his presence.

God answers Job’s mystery with the mystery of Himself.

Here is the bottom line: I am either held in the Everlasting Arms or I’m at the mercy of chance and I have to trust Him or deny Him.

He comes to you and me in our sorrow. And He says, “Trust me.” “Walk With Me.”

3. Acceptance: Suffering Is A Mystery that We Can Only Accept By God’s Grace

Acceptance is the key to peace in this whole matter of suffering.

The crux of the whole matter is the cross of Jesus Christ. And that word crux means cross. It is the best thing that ever happened in human history as well as the worst thing.

The will of God is love and love suffers.

Suffering is a mystery. It is not explained, but it is affirmed. And we must remember that all of Christianity rests on mysteries.

We are not adrift in chaos. We’re held in the everlasting arms.

The key to acceptance: the fact that suffering is never for nothing.

Faith is a willed obedient action. Jesus said again and again, “Don’t be afraid. Fear not. Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. Accept, take up the cross and follow.”

There’s an old legend, I’m told, inscribed in a parsonage in England somewhere on the sea coast, a Saxon legend that said, “Do the next thing.” I don’t know any simpler formula for peace, for relief from stress and anxiety than that very practical, very down-to-earth word of wisdom. Do the next thing. That has gotten me through more agonies than anything else I could recommend.

Isaiah 50:7

7 But the Lord God helps me;

therefore I have not been disgraced;

therefore I have set my face like a flint,

and I know that I shall not be put to shame.

2 Corinthians 12:9

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

When the answer is no, then we know that God has something better at stake. Far greater things are at stake. There is another level, another kingdom, an invisible kingdom which you and I cannot see now but toward which we move and to which we belong.

Whatever is in the cup that God is offering to me, whether it be pain and sorrow and suffering and grief along with the many more joys, I’m willing to take it because I trust Him.

4. Gratitude: Thanksgiving In The Midst Of Suffering Can Prepare The Way For God To Show Us His Salvation.

What kind of a difference would I expect others to see in my life which would catch their attention and show them there is something different about me? Two should be acceptance and gratitude.

When we are talking about gifts from God, we are talking about gifts that come from One who knows exactly what we need even though it is not necessarily to our tastes and preferences.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

It is not the experiences in our lives that change us. It is our response to those experiences.

Ephesians 5:20

20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

What is there to be grateful for in the midst of suffering?

God is still love.

God is still God.

God is still sovereign and not surprised by my suffering.

God will still ultimately save.

Psalm 34:1

1 I will bless the Lord at all times;

his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

I have never thanked God for cancer. I have never thanked God for the Indians who killed my husband. I don’t think I need to thank God for those things. But I do need to thank God that in the midst of that very situation, the world was still in his hands.

Psalm 50:23

23 The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;

to one who orders his way rightly

I will show the salvation of God!”

Remember Elisha and his servant sitting there on the mountain and suddenly the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha? They hadn’t been able to see them except with the eye of faith. Similarly, you and I have no idea what is going on in the unseen world, except we do know that they are for our perfection, for our fulfillment, and for our ultimate blessing.

5. Offering: There Is No Consolation Like Obedience

If God has given us a gift, it’s never only for ourselves. It’s always to be offered back to him and very often it has repercussions for the life of the world.

Romans 12:1

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

There is always much to thank God for, but it takes sacrifice to thank him for the things you want but do not have or the things you have that you would never want.

Genesis 45:8

8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

Genesis 41:52

52 The name of the second he called Ephraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

There’s an old prayer of Thanksgiving at the offering time. It goes like this, “All things come of thee, O Lord and of thine own have we given thee.” We receive it from Him. WE accept it in our hands. We say thank you. And then we offer it back.

Psalm 51:17

17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Elijah asking the starving widow to bake him a cake.

The boy who offered Jesus his five loaves and two fish.

Suffering and love are inextricably bound up together. And love invariably means sacrifice.

Many times we think of ministry as specific things like preaching or leading worship, but ministry simply means serving.

Taking what we have and sharing it for the good of others.

Ezekiel 24:16–18 ESV

16 “Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. 17 Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.” 18 So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded.

I have discovered there is no consolation like obedience. And when I was trying to offer up my feelings to God in the wee hours of the morning, I thanked God when it was time to get up because there were all kinds of simple, ordinary, down to earth things to do. Do the next thing.

6. Transfiguration: There Is No Redemptive Work Done Anywhere Without Suffering

Isaiah 58:10–11

10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry

and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

and your gloom be as the noonday.

11 And the Lord will guide you continually

and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters do not fail.

Proverbs 11:25

25 Whoever brings blessing will be enriched,

and one who waters will himself be watered.

If we receive the things God wants from us, if we thank Him for them and if we make those things an offering back to God, then this is what’s going to happen - transfiguration, the great principle of exchange that is the central principle of the Christian faith - the cross.

We know that the cross does not exempt us from suffering. In fact, Jesus said you must take up your cross.

I give Him my deaths and He gives me His life. My sorrows, He gives me joy. My losses, He gives me His gains. This is the great principle of the cross

Matthew 10:39

39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

He bore all my sins, all my griefs and all my sorrows. And yet there is a full tale yet to be fulfilled. I don’t understand it. I simply affirm it. I accept it.