God Never Wastes Suffering

This is an article I wrote for our church in light of our situation with Will(which has been resolved) and several other situations in our church family. I continue to be saddened by the suffering that those around me experience and yet hopeful for what God is doing in its midst.
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The past few weeks have been trying for our church family. I have been so impressed by how we have rallied around the ICU; for Kim and me with Will’s premature birth and now for the Owen family as Nick battles for his life. These could be added to various trials many others are facing, such as the Butterfield’s year-long ordeal with a whole host of issues. Every one of us is probably dealing with some sort of suffering in some manner or another. These events try our faith and test our belief in a good and sovereign God.

What are we to make of suffering? This is an issue with which philosophers and theologians have always wrestled. The Biblical truth is that God never wastes suffering, and neither should we. When the early Church Fathers were formulating the Apostles’ Creed, they summarized the whole activity of Jesus’ life by saying “He suffered.” This is hard for our American Christian ears to hear. So much of our culture is predicated on the avoidance of suffering. Think about all the advertising with which you are bombarded on a daily basis. Every bit of it tells you that you don’t have to suffer if you would only buy this product or use this service. But God can use suffering to tear away the façade and to teach us lessons that would otherwise be unheard.

Suffering has a purpose. “The testing of our faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-4). “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:1-4). The idea that suffering is out of the ordinary for Christians is a concept foreign to the pages of Scripture. Suffering and trials are a part of our life. And God intended it that way. He uses it to work out faith in the lives of His people. And we would do well not to short circuit the process. Rather, we need to see our sufferings as a conduit to faith. This doesn’t necessarily dull the pain we feel or the heartache we experience but it does give a purpose. Suffering should point us to the ultimate reality of God. When our ultimate reality is God our perspectives are changed. The minor things in life no longer seem so important. Our hearts are more captivated by that which is major. In the midst of suffering the truth of the Gospel takes on a depth that is otherwise unknown. Halfway through our NICU stay a nurse pulled me aside and said, “You know, this experience is going to make you a better pastor.” I replied, “Sure, but I wish I could have just read about it in a book.” We don’t like suffering, but God uses it for His glory in our lives. Suffering is a reality of living in a fallen world. As believers we can either run from it or seek the LORD in it. John Piper wrote a book “Don’t Waste Your Life,” and when he was diagnosed with cancer, he wrote an article titled “Don’t Waste Your Cancer.” I have been struck by Piper’s idea of not wasting our suffering. God doesn’t waste suffering and neither should we. Here are three ways to assure that our suffering is not wasted.

1. Acknowledge that God is sovereign and he allowed whatever suffering we face for our good. This truth can be hard to swallow. It becomes impossible to accept when we fail to see our lives in the light of eternity. But we must remember that not a single molecule of the Universe is outside of the sovereign control of God. What others may intend for evil, God intends for good (Gen 50:20; Rom 8:28).
2. Seek our comfort in God and not in relief from suffering. “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (Ps 20:7). In our day and age, we are blessed with such amazing medical advancements. Medically, we can do things which were only dreamt of a generation ago. And yet suffering remains. God will use this to remind us that He and He alone is our comfort. If we find our comfort in doctors and medicine or in anything else that offers relief, we will only be disappointed.
3. Take the opportunity to join with those who suffer by giving. The early church saw tremendous growth through its willingness to sacrifice for those who suffered. When babies were abandoned in ancient Rome, the Christians would rescue them and raise them (much to the consternation of the Roman officials). When plague and disease ran rampant in communities, the Christians stayed and ministered to the sick and dying. The Church was and continues to be built through generous giving. In the midst of suffering you and I have the privilege of giving our time, our money, our skills, and maybe even our lives to join with those in need. This is what Christ did for you. This is what it means to be generous with your life. This is what it means to live out the Gospel for others.

God never wastes suffering. If we do not look for the LORD in the midst of trials then we will miss that purpose and we will waste our suffering. You are not alone. Christ has given himself to enter into our suffering and he will supply every one of your needs (Phil 4:19). May God be glorified in our suffering.

The Blessings of Suffering

The other day I was supposed to share in class about some Devotional Classics I’ve been reading. I sat in front of the class and told them, “I’ve had a lot going on lately. It all seems to have coated my soul in Teflon and nothing I’ve read has stuck. I’m sorry, but I can’t share with you about the readings. Instead, I’m going to tell you about my last few days.” I went on to tell them about some dear friends of mine who found out they were pregnant with their first child. A few weeks into the pregnancy they learned that their baby had a birth defect that would kill their child within hours of birth if not during birth. They carried their child for several more months, enjoying their little boy for the short time they could. During those months we found out that we were pregnant with our third child. A week and a half ago, we were in the doctor’s office viewing our 20 week ultrasound. While the technician was telling us how wonderfully perfect our little baby is my phone vibrated. I instantly knew that it was the text message telling us that our friends’ baby had died. In that instant I was slammed with the heights of joy and depths of grief. I felt sad, joyous, relieved, grief-stricken, guilty, angry, happy… a flash flood of emotions washed over me in a moment.

After I shared, my professor talked about a passage from Julian of Norwich in which she prays for suffering. This is such a strange concept to my 21^st Century ears. My default setting is to avoid suffering at all cost. This is really a silly notion, though. I can’t get very far through my day before I’m standing nose to nose with the affects of suffering. It is part of living in a fallen world. As Julian lay dying, though, she thought of Christ on the Cross:

…I have never asked for any kind of revelation or vision from God – I only wanted to have the compassion I thought a loving soul would have for Jesus by witnessing his suffering. It was at that moment that I saw red blood running down from under the crown, hot and flowing freely, just as it must have been beneath the crown of thorns that pressed upon his head. I fully perceived at the moment that it was Jesus, both God and man, who suffered for me, for I now knew it directly without anyone telling me.[1]

Slowly, I think I’m beginning to see the role of testing and suffering in faith. But this understanding does little to mitigate the pain of living in a fallen world. I’ve heard many well-meaning folks talk about losing a baby like it’s a good thing because the baby is with Jesus now. While I believe the child of these believers is now with Christ because of his covenantal promises, I find that my heart still grieves over this loss. It isn’t supposed to be this way. I cannot look at this as a “happy” thing. I will not look at the deadly affects of sin on God’s good creation and say it is a good thing. But I can be thankful for it. I am thankful because there is a God who stepped into this mess. There is a God who is not only compassionate but empathetic to us in our sufferings. And through his sufferings and victory over death he will redeem this world. Death will be no more and then he will wipe away every tear. I will not like it but I will be thankful that I can lean hard into a Savior who understands the pain of death far more intimately than I do. I will not like it but I will look with faith and hope to the day when the death of Christ fully accomplishes the death of Death.

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[1] Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, in Richard J. Foster, Devotional Classics: Revised Edition: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups, Revised. (HarperOne, 2005), 75.

In Prison

I spent Monday morning in prison...by design. I've helped my church start a Bible Study at a local prison facility. Monday was my first morning in the facility with the inmates, and it was awesome. The men there are so spiritually hungry and open. They've reached the end of a rope that few people on the outside understand. It is in those darkest valleys that we can best understand out need for a Savior.
I spoke with the men about the Crucifixion of Jesus. I tried, however, to take a little different tack than was expected. We spent most of our time discussing the Crucifixion by looking at Genesis and Psalm 22.
We started in Genesis and laid the groundwork for the story of redemption. We also looked at Genesis 15, God's covenant with Abraham. The most striking aspect of this passage is the nature of the curse component of the covenant. Typically in a covenant, it was ratified with the sacrifice of animals. The animals were split in two and the parties of the covenant would walk through the pieces of the sacrifice. The significance was that the one who violated the covenant would be treated like the animal that was sacrificed. The nature of this curse in Genesis 15 is that only God walked through the sacrifice. God ratified the covenant with Abram and promised that if Abram broke the covenant the curse would rest upon God, himself.
With this idea, we turn to Psalm 22 and looked a this great Psalm of lament. There are two parts to this psalm. The first half is a lament. The psalmist alternates between suffering and faithfulness of God to deliver us from suffering. The second half changes in tone from lament to joy because we begin to see God's plan for redemption, first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. There is no distinction between rich or poor; near or far; born or unborn. All of God's children will come to him through the suffering of his servant.
The descriptions of the Crucifixion in Psalm 22 are amazing. The opening verse was quoted by Jesus in the Matthew and Mark accounts of the Crucifixion. We know that Jesus must have been meditating on this psalm as he hung on the cross. As he bore the full measure of God's righteous wrath on my behalf, he experienced the same lament the psalmist described. Jesus was not unaware or unsympathetic with our sufferings because he suffered the same things (Heb. 2). But Jesus also knew that this psalm turns to joy. There is joy because the Father is faithful. Jesus knew that God's wrath would be satisfied and we would be "delivered from the sword" (Ps 22:21). "The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord!" (Ps 22:26). As Jesus meditated on this psalm he knew His righteousness would be proclaimed to a generation yet unborn and they would know that because of His work IT IS FINISHED! (Ps. 22:31). And these are the very words that John records as Jesus' last words on the cross, "It is finished."
The inmates really connected with the idea of suffering. They knew that they have both caused suffering and are experiencing suffering. I was struck with the fact that I am no different from these men in prison coveralls. I too have experienced suffering...and caused much suffering. But God is not unaware or disconnected from our suffering. Even repentant criminals can know that the Creator of the Universe understands their suffering more intimately than they understand it themselves. And this same God bids us to come to him in faith and repentence. If this isn't Good News, then nothing is Good News!