Suffering is short

Bible passages about suffering always make me nervous. Life is good; so is this a warning? Do I expect the next thing that happens will bring suffering?

Suffering is no fun at all. Yet I wonder about defining suffering ever since one of our relatives said to us, “You have been through so much” and we had no idea what she was talking about. Obviously, what seems suffering for one person is not the same as suffering for others.

That said, most of the Bible passages about suffering clearly say that the hardships Christians go through are the same sufferings that Christ endured. What did He suffer? Just coming to earth from heaven had to be a shock to His system. Besides that extreme environmental change, He endured ridicule, rejection, being mocked and misunderstood, having no place of His own to live, being abandoned by those closest to Him, and of course the indescribable suffering for our sin as He was crucified.

However, after all of it, He rose from the dead, returned to heaven, and will someday reign in glory on the earth. This is the pattern. God says I will experience similar suffering but also enjoy His glory when it happens in its fullness.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12–13)

Fiery trials are not about fire, but some of them feel like being in a furnace or a crucible where the dross is burned away. Jesus was sinless and did not need that kind of trial, yet when He bore the sin of the world, it must have felt the same only billions more intense. Oh my. I will never undergo what He did for me.

Another trial is much less severe — the mere fact of growing older. Lest I get discouraged, God says not to lose heart. While Jesus did not age (He is ageless), He lived here for a short time to prepare for me a future that is almost incomprehensible. I will experience eternity with Him in all His glory. Even thinking about it fills my heart with a longing to be there. This life, suffering or not, is brief and fading, momentary. That life is forever, crystal clear, unseen now but then it will be all that I see and know . . .

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16–18)

All suffering is short compared to the glory God has planned for His people.

Yet God knows that His children need encouragement. He sent the Holy Spirit to speak into my heart and mind. By that wonder of wonders, He reassures me that I am His child, and again that any suffering that happens to me is not a big deal when compared to the reality of what will happen next; I will see the glory of the Lord!

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:16–18)

Whatever happens, Jesus keeps me in His care. Through Him, I may suffer, yet through Him I will one day stand in the presence of God . . .

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24–25)

Major or minor, in the future or on the doorstep, suffering is still no fun. Yet there is joy set before me so that I can endure until that day I will never suffer again.

Sharing suffering . . .

Paul lists all the qualities and privileges in his life that he could have placed his confidence in to impress God. He was a respected and zealous Pharisee living a ‘blameless’ life. However, after his encounter with Christ the source of his confidence changed . . .

“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, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:8–11)

Notice in this statement that Paul’s desire and goal was to know Christ, to be like Him so that whatever Christ experienced, he also experienced. He wanted to share His righteousness, His powerful life, His sufferings, and even His death knowing that Christ was the only way to live eternally.

Not too long ago, I was having a pity-party. A few disappointments had me feeling sorry for myself. However, the Lord took hold of me and reminded me that He suffered the same disappointment over and over again. The way others behave landed on Him to the point that He died for all that sin. He told me that He knew exactly how I felt, and invited me to share in His sufferings.

At this, a great weight lifted; His words had a profound effect. Instead of feeling sorry for me, I immediately focused on Him and on the privilege of knowing Him in a deeper way. I do not suffer alone but am yoked with my Savior. I know that He carries the load and being beside Him is a joy unspeakable, certainly not something to whine about.

Chambers talks about realizing Jesus in all that we do, whether eating or drinking, or washing the disciples’ feet. Realizing He is carrying my painful loads makes a difference no matter what they are. I am yoked with Him, yet He is carrying the whole load. Not only that, by His amazing grace, those sorrows become joy-filled.

Value of suffering…

When sin threatens, the bodily form of my suffering Savior at Calvary turns my heart from temptation to humility and resolve — for He bore all the sin that I commit. His death and resurrection made forgiveness of sin and salvation possible. My sin mocks the purpose for which He died.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? (Isaiah 53:8)

The good news of such suffering is about the effect it has on resisting sin. As the Bible tells me, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24).

Yet I cannot focus on my sin or even on my part in resisting sin. If I do, I become obsessed with trying to win the battle instead of remembering that this battle has already been won at the Cross. My focus needs to be on Jesus and what He has done and continues to do in my life.

Also, I need to think the way Christ thinks about temptation, sin, and even suffering.

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin... (1 Peter 4:1)

Temptation and sin can be appealing, but Christ didn’t think so. He knows how it appears to His eternal and holy Father. It is an affront to all that God is and deadly to those He loves. By arming myself in His way of thinking, I abhor sin and any allure to sin becomes disgusting, vile and repulsive in my mind.

It is the suffering part that is more difficult. I’m not a big fan and prefer comfort by far. However, Christ, the perfect and sinless Son of God had different thoughts about suffering. He used it to learn obedience.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.. (Hebrews 5:8–9)

Jesus, though fully divine, was also fully human. Though always without sin and therefore always obedient, Jesus acquired knowledge and experience by living as a human being. He learned firsthand what it cost to maintain obedience in the trials of life. As He “increased in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52), successive temptations were no doubt more difficult to deal with. As He obeyed His Father, He “learned” fully in His experience what He no doubt knew in His mind. It is His lifelong perfect obedience that is the source for my obedience, the ultimate “perfection” of my spiritual life.

But this is established through faith and obedience in suffering. I don’t like that part. Learning to think about it as Jesus thinks about it seems as challenging as trying to leap across the Grand Canyon or swim from here to Southeast Asia. Even the relatively mild sufferings of my homework assignments this past week were daunting, but I realize that they too are designed to teach me obedience.

This also is about looking at the Cross, at the suffering of Christ. Nothing that I experience will ever be like that. This is why Hebrews 12:3 tells me to “Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”

Consider what Jesus suffered and stop feeling sorry for myself. Consider what Jesus suffered for me and let the comparison stop my whining and efforts to escape even mild discomforts. Let the Lord teach me obedience, even it means being mocked, attacked by vile temptations, stricken in my physical body.

As Luther writes, I need to look at Jesus and say, “Ah, why shouldn’t I also suffer a little since my Lord sweat blood in the garden because of anxiety and grief? I would be a lazy, disgraceful Christian if I wanted to lie in ease while my Lord was compelled to battle with a painful death.”

Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude — a challenge indeed.

Why suffer with Jesus?

Going to the cross is easy to avoid. It is like turning off the television news when the focus is on genocide or child killers or some other deplorable crime. It is like looking the other way instead of viewing those pictures of starving children or orphans with gaunt and haunted faces. It is like staying home instead of going to help at the soup kitchen or enjoying a meal in a restaurant instead of taking a homeless person home for dinner.

I know the bent of my selfish heart. I need to spend more time at the cross and allow the suffering of Jesus do something to it. Martin Luther writes that it will. He says…

You must, at the time of death if not sooner, fall into terror, tremble, quake, and experience all Christ suffered on the cross. It is truly terrible to attend to this on your deathbed; therefore you should pray God to soften your heart and permit you fruitfully to meditate on Christ’s suffering. For it is impossible for us profoundly to meditate on the sufferings of Christ of ourselves unless God sink them into our hearts. But first you are to seek and long for the grace of God, that you may accomplish it through God’s grace and not through your own power. Some people never treat the sufferings of Christ aright, for they never call on God for that purpose but devise out of their own ability their own way and treat those sufferings entirely in a human and an unfruitful manner.

He adds that such meditation changes a person’s character, because staying at the cross and experiencing Christ’s suffering slays the old nature and banishes lust, pleasure, and security. It is to experience the death of Christ as He was forsaken by all and suffered for all.

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:3–5)

The passage says that by His suffering, we are healed, so why would anyone want to participate in this thing that He did for us? After explaining that he gladly lost everything else, Paul explains why he wanted this…

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, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:8–11)

He is not talking about salvation; he already has eternal life. He is talking about living in the power of that redeemed life, about a Christian maturity that leaves all selfishness and self-effort behind and “presses on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

This desire and effort is a work of grace, a blessing from God that can make His child a blessing to others because there is no longer any concern about what happens self. It is absolute surrender to Christ, and it involves dying to the old life and all parts of it. While God does the slaying, we can cooperated and be involved in the process by bowing before Him at the foot of the cross.

Comfort balances troubles

There is a joy known only to those who suffer. Years ago, we experienced a family crisis involving one of our children and a friend. As soon as the bad news came to us, we should have been devastated, but with barely a prayer, perhaps breathed more than spoken, we were filled with joy.

It was odd. We could not turn it off. We were calm and should not have been. The friend’s parents were hysterical. We told them God was in control. For us, this was obvious; only You could have given us the emotions we were experiencing.

In a few hours, the crisis was over. The children were okay and everyone relieved. However, we never forgot that unexpected peace and joy in what should have produced the opposite. This was the first time, but You have done this more than once.

In tonight’s devotional reading, Spurgeon writes about the balance of suffering with comfort. He uses this verse . . . 

For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. (2 Corinthians 1:5)

I’d never realized my experiences as “sharing in Christ’s sufferings” until recognizing that You have ‘children’ who get into trouble also. You know what this is like. The Bible says that You identify with my struggles for You experience all that I do as part of Your incarnation.

I can also identify with Your sufferings. You were despised, rejected, mocked, ignored, mistrusted and more. People still reject You, and any child of God who strives to be like You will also be rejected and mocked by others.

Yet this is not the point that Spurgeon makes. He says that the greater the weight of suffering on one side of the balance beam, the greater the weight of comfort that You put on the other. For instance, You give joy and peace to balance out anxiety and fear.

Spurgeon gives a reason for this reality. He writes that trials make more room for consolation because God makes a person’s hearts greater by using great troubles. Deep trouble creates a deeper reservoir for comfort.

Not only that, if You find my heart filled with my own ways of comforting myself, You use the trials of life to break and wean me from those things that I trust instead of You. Then, when those trivial things are gone, there is more room for grace. Spurgeon also says that the humbler I am, the more comfort You will give, because I am more fitted to receive it.

He gives one more reason that peace and joy can be present in my troubles. It is because during those times I tend to drop all else and run to You. Trials bring me into greater intimacy and the closer I get to You, the more I know Your grace and comfort.

I don’t seek trials. No one has to do that because life brings them. Yet I do not have to fear them or go to great extremes to protect myself. When trouble happens, You will not let the balance tip so far as to destroy my hope. You are with me always and You know how to keep enough weight on the other end of that beam.

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