Our Souls & Suffering

The Danger of Adversity

We’re talking about the wellness of our soul. That’s question I hope you’re asking - how is it with my soul? Is it well with my soul?

We started by talking about what a soul, nephesh (Hebrew word) is. It’s deepest part of life and power within us. It is our true self, our essential person.

And our main point, that our soul is well when we are connected and open to God. Souls are place where God is present to us.

Last week we began to look in greater detail about ways that our soul can become unwell - and we talked about the dangers of attachment to the world. C.S. Lewis spoke how “prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him.”

Key, then, was to seek freedom, soul wellness, through detachment from things of world, earthly things (fasting, spiritual discipline of simplicity)

We’re going to let C.S. Lewis introduce our focus this morning, another danger to our soul (Screwtape Letters - demons writing letters)

The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather. You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere. The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it – all of this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition.

Lewis has such great insights into human condition, how easily the difficulties of life wear on us as years go by - hardly felt as pain - souls, little by little are worn out.

C.S. Lewis speaks specifically about middle age adversity as we experience it over time, but, really, adversity can and does happen at any age.

Pete Scazzero says that one of problems with experiences of pain or loss - is that we see them as interruption to our lives, something alien…which is a great insight - because it says something about out expectations about life.

We see these as interruptions because our general expectation is that life should be trouble-free, that on a day-to-day basis, our life should go well, we should be happy.

Which, when we say it out loud, we begin to see how unrealistic that is. Everyone experiences difficulties. Everyone suffers to one degree or another. Everyone experiences loss.

But if that’s our expectation, if we see grief and loss as an interruption, it causes us to respond poorly when we do experience trials and difficulties.

I can think of a young man I knew who, unfortunately, was going through a difficult period - intense personal struggle.

You could see, over time, his anger and bitterness toward God (and others) growing.

As that happened, he started equipping himself for reasons why he shouldn’t believe in God.

Now, he would have said he was being logical, just looking at the evidence. But I don’t think he realized how much of his thinking was being driven by the wounds of his heart. He didn’t want God to exist - he didn’t want God to exist because he was hurting and he felt God was to blame. His soul was unwell.

And this is natural reaction.

When we experience pain in life, when there’s a wound - natural tendency is to protect that wound. It’s raw there, don’t touch.

You’ve seen reaction when you’ve ever tried to care for a wounded animal - even a beloved pet. They can and will lash out if you touch that wound.

That’s not just true of animals. True for us, too. Hurt people hurt people.

This is warning that C.S. Lewis, Pete Scazzero is offering, danger from experiencing adversity - and how it affects our souls.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a sudden grief or loss, traumatic event

Or more along the lines of what C.S. Lewis paints so well, a sort of “death by a thousand cuts” - those small repeated cuts, continual wounds or disappointments or frustrations

It results in an unwell soul: quiet despair, inarticulate resentment, easy irritability, cynical heart, toxic anger.

How is it with your soul?

Jesus Shows the Way

And yet, we can see those who have suffered tremendously, who have experienced adversity, who have come out of that with an enriched soul. A more open and loving soul. A healthy soul, one connected and open to God.

Jeremiah, the suffering prophet. Job, whose very story exemplifies suffering. Most of all, Jesus.

It’s their example we must follow - and this is our main point this morning: If we are to have a healthy soul, one connected and open to God, we must acknowledge and surrender our woundedness to Jesus. We must bring our pain and suffering, our grief and losses, to Jesus.

We see Jesus doing exactly this. Nowhere do we find Jesus struggling more, facing greater adversity - than when we find him praying in the Garden of Gethsemane right before he is arrested and condemned to be crucified.

When we think about Jesus in this moment, we have to get clear in our minds what he was enduring - because there are some images that aren’t helpful. Here’s one clear example…this is the pensive, calm Jesus praying in the garden.

But that’s not the description we find in the Gospels, Mathew 26:37-39

He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground...

Sorrow just flooded over Jesus…”My soul, my very life, deep place of life and power, is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”

This soul-crushing sorrow doesn’t just bring Jesus to his knees, it knocks him flat down…he fell with his face to the ground. This is a far better image to get in your mind...

Do you see how open and vulnerable Jesus is with his pain and suffering?! This is first key to how our soul can be well even in the midst of adversity. To acknowledge it. To be with it. To not deny or minimize or intellectualize or hide it.

Here’s Jesus, he’s leader, Messiah, the one who’s supposed to have it all together, to be strong - just coming right out to his disciples and saying, “I’m really, really struggling here. I’m hurting. Be with me. I need you to be with me right now.”

And not just with his disciples, but with the Father himself. Laid out, on ground. Father, this is too much. Please take it from me. Please find another way.

The Bible is chock full of examples of what soul care looks like when it comes to enduring suffering - especially when it comes to bringing it openly to God.

The Book of Psalms is a course on Suffering 101. So many of the psalms are prayers of lament. Do you know what a lament is? It’s a complaint. I don’t like this. This hurts. An outpouring of grief and pain before God. You’ll find frustration and bewilderment expressed in prayers of people crying out to God. Psalm 42, psalm we began with…I say to God my Rock, why have you forgotten me, why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?

Job is the premier example of enduring suffering honestly. Job cries out to God, cursing the day of his birth, why did you ever bother to make me? He railed against God, Why won’t you come speak to me? All the doubt and anger and anguish, he brought to God.

Here’s thing - grief and losses and suffering are not interruptions in life. They are very much part of life.

Jonathan Edwards made point that the story of Job is the story of us all. For Job, it all happened in one day - the loss of his family, his wealth, his health - just crushing blow after crushing blow.

But everything Job suffered, we will, too. We will lose everyone we know and love. Our own health will fade away. Every possession we have will break or wear out - or we will die and have to leave it behind. Our dreams and goals will fade away.

Remember, our soul is place that God is present to us. So if we want a healthy soul, connected and open to God, this means that as we endure pains and hurts - whether it’s big, deep griefs or the small cuts we experience daily - we want to bring them before Jesus.

I have to be honest here. This is not easy for me - I come from a family where stoicism was the de facto way of dealing with emotional wounds.

Everything was OK. I’m not angry. That didn’t bother me. But things did. They do.

Sometimes we can try to spiritualize our pain by trying to joy our way through it…I’m a believer, I should be joyful. The joy of the Lord. Funeral services are renamed “celebration of life.” We want the resurrection without the experience of crucifixion.

I’m can’t believe I’m referencing another Pixar movie, but the movie, Inside Out, dealt wonderfully with this…story is about all emotions going on inside the little girl. Emotions are all personified as characters. One of her emotions, Joy, is so determined to keep sadness from “ruining” all the good, she won’t let her girl experience grief over the losses she’s been enduring. Joy can’t see good in grieving loss, experiencing the pain.

Other key aspect of this - is not just being open and honest, but willingness to come in humble surrender with God in midst of our brokenness.

Jesus, fell with his face to ground, bringing not just an open admission of how much this hurt, but humble surrender...”My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Thomas Smail describes Jesus prayer here as a “trusting response to known love.”

We do this not only because it’s good and right, but because we trust and believe that God can and does use our losses, our suffering, for his good purposes. That he can and will redeem them.

Hebrews 5:7-9

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him...

Notice that it wasn’t just praying in garden, but during the days of Jesus’ life on earth - he was regularly offering up prayers and petition with fervent cries and tears to Father. But then, “He learned obedience from what he suffered.”

What does that mean?!? How did Jesus learn obedience? Wasn’t he always obedient, never sinned?

I think it means the depth of his obedience. How far he was willing to go. It’s one thing to be obedient to honoring your father and mother and then to be faithful to call to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom. But to be obedient unto death, as Philippians 2 puts it, even death on a cross.

That is a far costlier and much harder obedience - Jesus’ suffering to surrender his will to the Father was genuine. He did not want to do it. But he did. He learned obedience.

If we’re willing, suffering teaches us obedience. If we come to God with our suffering, open and connected, we move into greater brokenness…we are broken from pride and moral superiority and callousness and thinking we can manage it all, have it all under control.

God can shape our souls to be more humble, more compassionate, more patient, more reliant on him. We, too, can learn obedience through suffering.

Peter Scazzero teaches that grief and loss can shrivel or harden our souls - or they can enlarge our soul.

There’s a wonderful illustration of how boiling water impacts things differently in the same way suffering can impact us.

Like an egg in boiling water, we can become hardened. Like carrot, we can become soft, defeated. But like coffee, God can make something wonderful out of suffering we endure.

I love image of coffee because it ties in beautifully with idea that we don’t get over grief and loss (that’s interruption thinking) - rather, it becomes part of who we are.

Gerald Sittser, who lost his mother, wife and young daughter in a terrible car accident writes about his experience of loss and how it changes us: It is not therefore true that we become less through loss - unless we allow the loss to make us less, grinding our soul down until there is nothing left…loss can also make us more. I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather, I absorbed the loss into my life, until it became part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it. The soul is elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering.

Jesus’ suffering became part of who he is. We see that beautifully in fact that when Jesus rose from the dead, he still bore the scars of crucifixion. He invited the skeptical disciples to touch the nail wounds in his hands, put their hands in the spear wound in his side.

This is how we can be well in our souls: do like Jesus did, to bring our suffering, our grief, our anger, openly and honestly to him, with an attitude of humble surrender.

As followers of Jesus, we want to hear words of Jesus and put them into practice…let me offer you two ways to do that this morning...

First is to be attention to what’s going on in your soul. What are you experiencing - is there anger? Is something going on in your life more of a loss than you realize.

Pete Scazzero, like many of us, grew up in family where you didn’t express your emotions. He started journaling them as a way to be attentive to them - and to bring them before Jesus.

Be attentive - why did I respond with an angry tone? Get impatient? Or shrink back? What’s going on there?

Remember, it’s not just about acknowledging what’s going on, but attitude of humble surrender, willingness to wait to see what God will do

I think the Psalms can be really helpful here, because they give space for whole host of emotions, of struggles and difficulties - laments

But also, a willingness to come to God with them…Yet I will put my hope in God.

Pray through Psalms (150 of them, 6 months)

Inspiration - Let me finish with this…in James Bryan Smith’s book, the Good and Beautiful God, he shares heart-wrenching story of his daughter, Madeline,

She was born with terminal birth defects and after one of her multiple surgeries, she did not respond well, her body began shutting down.

A dear friend prayed with James and his wife. He chose a prayer from his prayer book that became a healing moment for them as they faced their daughter’s death. I want to share the prayer with you because I think it speaks wonderfully to enduring adversity, with open honesty and humble surrender, a trusting response to known love.

Our thoughts are not Your thoughts O Lord, and our ways are not Your ways. We confess to You that we cannot see Your divine hand in the suffering of Madeline. Help us, we beg You, to see that in this evil there is some purpose, beyond our grasp and comprehension. Our minds are confused. Our hearts are in distress. Our wills are lost and weak, and our strength is gone, as we see this innocent creature caught by the sins of the world and the power of the devil, a victim of senseless suffering and pain. Have mercy on this child, Lord, have mercy! Do not prolong the agony! Do not allow the pain and suffering to increase! We know not what to ask You; give us the grace only to say, “Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” Give us faith, for we believe, O Lord; help our unbelief. Be with Your child Madeline, and suffer with her; heal her and save her, according to Your own saving plan, established before the creation of the world. For You are our only hope, O God, and in You we take refuge: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

My hope and prayer is that we would be able to do the same - to bring our pain and suffering, our grief and losses, openly and in humble surrender to our God. So that it may be well with our souls.