Our Response to Suffering
by Simone Lake
Suffering comes in all phases, levels, and extremities.
Look around the world, your loved ones, and the daily news for evidence.
It reaches beyond and touches every ethnicity, culture, gender, and age.
It involves every one of our emotions.
It affects our mind, heart, and soul.
It rocks our nervous system, offering shaking and shuttering. And it will leave lasting scars for a lifetime of continual intense pulses of pain.
No one living on this earth will escape it.
We cannot hide from the violence it brings, carving away at our inward parts.
No matter what area of ministry I am involved with, one of the common denominators of the people I meet is the various kinds of suffering endured in their lifetime.
Everyone has a story. Everyone has their battle wounds to show, whether visible or invisible.
There is no need to rank the areas of suffering.
Although each occurrence may be categorized in various measures, we have all been through some type in our lifetime.
Some people endure unbelievable circumstances that bring wonderment to those on the outskirts watching.
Other people endure the daily simplicities of life, hidden from all. They are sacred and secret from outsiders' eyes.
Both pain is equally intense.
Each fresh experience brings new elements of detail. However, the pain is still the same.
The healing of the wound is a lengthy ordeal, recovery time is sluggish, and full recovery lingers, teasing us along the way.
The question is not if we will suffer. The question is what is your response when you suffer?
Responses to suffering include:
1) Anger at God
2) Absolute hopelessness
3) Praise God
Consequences of these responses:
1) Alienating the only One who can truly help
2) Failing to see (not seeing) the true Hope that brings deliverance
3) Joining with the angels (and all creation) in the glorious task of praise.
Which response and consequence will you select?
One of my Biblical heroes is the Apostle Paul. As he shares his qualifications and evidence as an apostle with the saints at Corinth, he also shares his path of suffering.
How is it that a man can endure five separate times of getting his back beaten 40 lashes each time (minus one) and come through those experiences closer to God than ever before?
His back would have been lashed a grand total of 195 to 200 times. He was stoned once and left for dead but did not die, and he was shipwrecked three times. This is just a small portion of his resume of suffering for Christ. Towards the end of his life, he was put in prison.
What stands out the most about Paul is the specific things he writes in the New Testament letters. To all the various saints and churches not once does he regurgitate his trials, share details of his wounds, or lamentations of each experiential woe.
Instead, while not refusing to process his persecution, nor glossing over the reality of his suffering, he heaps encouragement after encouragement towards his audience. Instead of a self-focused gaze at what he has endured, he leads them to a constant focus on Christ regardless of the circumstance.
This is amazing!
How does one get to that place?
Especially with all the things he endured. It’s incredible!
That is my quest and one of my greatest desires; to train my heart, soul, mind, and body in the fine art of focus and praise to a holy and majestic God.
So when I am in a place of suffering:
1) My focus will hopefully not be on the thoughts of pain that can reinjure over and over again. But instead, praises will be on my lips refreshing me over and over again on His goodness.
2) My focus will be on a holy task that drowns out the throbbing pulses and instead be replaced with repeated gazes and glimpses upon the Triune God.
3) My focus will not be on me because this body will fade away. Instead, I want to focus on the glorious inheritance that awaits…not to mention the house I always wanted.
So I invite you to join me in ordering our flesh to do what we were created to do: Glorify the Lord in EVERYTHING.
Scripture Text: II Corinthians 11: 23-33
An adapted version of this article can be found here.
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