The purpose of Suffering…

Since Piper’s devotional is copyrighted, I cannot paste today’s reading here, but am tempted — because it is so helpful. I try to tell others the value of suffering and Piper does a better job! He has never heard anyone say, “The really deep lessons of my life have come through times of ease and comfort.” I agree, and I know by experience that any growth I experience comes by learning the depth of His grace and mercy during suffering.

Jesus is the best example. “Although he was a son, (and sinless) he learned obedience through what he suffered.” (Hebrews 4:15; 5:8) This learning is not like mine where I must learn to obey rather than not, but that He experienced the depth of being yielded to His Father by what He suffered. I do too.

Paul is another example. He said:

Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death… (Philippians 3:4–10)

Another example given is Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), a Scottish minister who suffered because he went against tradition and error in the church and given the death penalty for treason. However, he was already facing death with a disease. He said this:

"I have a summons already from a superior Judge and judicatory, and I behoove to answer my first summons; and, ere your day arrives, I will be where few kings and great folks come.”

In prison, he continued to write enduring letters that conveyed his delight in the glory and all-sufficiency of Christ. He said, “I go to my King’s palace at Aberdeen; tongue, pen, and wit cannot express my joy.” Others said this man was “impatient of earth, intolerant of sin, rapt into the continual contemplation of one unseen Face, finding his … happiness in its returning smile.  His glory was his absorption in Christ. He went to sleep with Christ as his pillow; he awoke in Christ.”

Rutherford also said this: 

If God had told me some time ago that He was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then had told me that He should begin by crippling me in all my limbs, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing His purpose. And yet, how is His wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a close room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps; and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven.

My example these days is our granddaughter, also ‘crippled in all her limbs, and removed from all her usual sources of enjoyment’ yet so joyful in her hospital ‘prison’ that being with her in her deeply affects me too.

PRAY: Lord, Piper says “O how I pray that when God, in his mercy, begins to blow out my lamps, I will not curse the wind” and I must pray that too, for Christians I know who suffer, but also for myself. Pity parties are no fun at all. Only the joy You give can overcome the crippling power of feeling sorry for myself when suffering comes my way, and only You can use it for great good and for Your glory.