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There have been a few inconvenient, heartfelt, and even painful things happening in and around my life, and to my friends, at the time of writing this post, that has caused me to look into the topic of suffering. It's not a great topic to write about, but learning the facts of suffering and understanding why it is there, helps us work through it, and provides us some form of respite when we know the answers to questions like; Why does suffering come? Why can't God snap His fingers and take it away? What is the purpose of it?
Why does suffering come?
The fact is that all mankind are born as children of Adam, so it's not strange that all men bear suffering. "...by one man (Adam) Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom.5:12). The sorrows, sickness and death men suffer entered the world as the effects of Sin indwelling the flesh bodies of all men to produce self-serving and evil. And after the suffering, death ultimately comes "by Sin."
Even though we as believers put our trust in the God of Creation, and even
have right standing with Him positionally, the fact remains that we still live
in 'Sin' tainted human "flesh" bodies, thus they also are tempted of "Sin in
the flesh" (Rom.8:3). Believers
encounter the same hard situations and death, such as is common to man. We
cannot escape this fact whilst we still dwell on this earth.
Why can't God snap His fingers and take it away?
The Father uses all things for our good (Rom.8:28-29). The evil doings of Joseph’s brothers was ordained of God and meant for the good. "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good..." (Gen 50:20)
You might not like to hear this, and you might not even be able to comprehend
this in the midst of your trails, but the suffering God prescribes for us, are
for our good, since suffering does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We
cannot make our self trust God – so
it is He that is at work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil
2:13). "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory
by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect,
stablish, strengthen, settle you." (1 Peter 5:10).
The Lord has destined that we grow in our faith in Him and in our abiding in
union with the Lord. The Lord sets the course of our lives using all the
circumstances and situations of our lives to that end, that we learn to abide
in union with Him...trusting Him... in the face of all situations.
What is the purpose of it?
There is a purpose to suffering. It is not just being poured out upon us to harm us! Never! Let's look at just a few valid points that can provide us understanding that trials, hardships and sufferings do have a role to play in shaping us, humbling us to a point of greater reliance on Him, who holds us and our circumstances in perfect balance.
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The cup of suffering (Mark 10:39) is crucial to our being able to realize the truth of our state, as
it was for Paul when the Lord denied his three pleadings to remove the thorn
Paul suffered in his flesh. The Lord told Paul
"my grace is sufficient." Christ
Himself is the very grace of God and His life in us is sufficient for all
that we will endure.
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Believers could not be of much spiritual help to others if they were
exempt from the sufferings all men have to bear.
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Even the most godly believer isn't perfect and
must at times be disciplined.
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It tends to make a believer grow in genuine faith and trust. Changing
their view of things, it pushes them to a greater, more consistent, union
with the Lord. Paul said,
"I take pleasure in infirmities… for when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor.12:10).
"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor.4:17).
God is Sovereign and He is in control OVER ALL the happenings in the
believer's life. He is working in and through ALL THINGS for our
eternal good. If we truly believe this, knowing that He loves us
unconditionally, we would never fear or question His love for us... even in
the midst of our life's trials.
Portions above referenced and slightly modified from ArtLicursi.com
http://artlicursi.com/series/comfort-suffering-gods-people; http://artlicursi.com/articles/suffering-life-believers; http://artlicursi.com/articles/part-19-25-necessity-suffering
Some Inspiration
Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my 75 years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my experience, has been through affliction and not through happiness.
Malcolm Muggeridge, in Homemade, July, 1990.
If we consider the greatness and the glory of the life we shall have when we have risen from the dead, it would not be difficult at all for us to bear the concerns of this world. If I believe the Word, I shall on the Last Day, after the sentence has been pronounced, not only gladly have suffered ordinary temptations, insults, and imprisonment, but I shall also say: "O, that I did not throw myself under the feet of all the godless for the sake of the great glory which I now see revealed and which has come to me through the merit of Christ!"
Martin Luther.
A. Parnell Bailey visited an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down. The season was unusually dry and some of the trees were beginning to die for lack of water. The man giving the tour then took Bailey to his own orchard where irrigation was used sparingly. "These trees could go without rain for another 2 weeks," he said. "You see, when they were young, I frequently kept water from them. This hardship caused them to send their roots deeper into the soil in search of moisture. Now mine are the deepest-rooted trees in the area. While others are being scorched by the sun, these are finding moisture at a greater depth."
Our Daily Bread.
A famous evangelist told the following incident: I have a friend who in a time of business recession lost his job, a sizable fortune, and his beautiful home. To add to his sorrow, his precious wife died; yet he tenaciously held to his faith -- the only thing he had left. One day when he was out walking in search of employment, he stopped to watch some men who were doing stonework on a large church. One of them was chiseling a triangular piece of rock. 'Where are you going to put that?' he asked. The workman said, 'Do you see that little opening up there near the spire? Well, I'm shaping this stone down here so that it will fit in up there.' Tears filled my friend's eyes as he walked away, for the Lord had spoken to him through that laborer whose words gave new meaning to his troubled situation.
Our Daily Bread.
Most of the Psalms were born in difficulty. Most of the Epistles were written in prisons. Most of the greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers of all time had to pass through the fire. Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress from jail. Florence Nightingale, too ill to move from her bed, reorganized the hospitals of England. Semi-paralyzed and under the constant menace of apoplexy, Pasteur was tireless in his attack on disease. During the greater part of his life, American historian Francis Parkman suffered so acutely that he could not work for more than five minutes at a time. His eyesight was so wretched that he could scrawl only a few gigantic words on a manuscript, yet he contrived to write twenty magnificent volumes of history.
Sometimes it seems that when God is about to make preeminent use of a man, he puts him through the fire.
Tim Hansel, You Gotta Keep Dancin', David C. Cook, 1985, p. 87.
B.M. Launderville has written, "The vine clings to the oak during the fiercest of storms. Although the violence of nature may uproot the oak, twining tendrils still cling to it. If the vine is on the side opposite the wind, the great oak is its protection; if it is on the exposed side, the tempest only presses it closer to the trunk. In some of the storms of life, God intervenes and shelters us; while in others He allows us to be exposed, so that we will be pressed more closely to Him."
Today in the Word, April, 1989, p. 17.
John Donne, a 17th century poet, experienced great pain. Because he married the daughter of a disapproving lord, he was fired from his job as assistant to the Lord Chancellor, yanked from his wife, and locked in a dungeon. (This is when he wrote that succinct line of despair, "John Donne/ Anne Donne/ Undone.") Later, he endured a long illness which sapped his strength almost to the point of death. In the midst of this illness, Donne wrote a series of devotions on suffering which rank among the most poignant meditations on the subject. In one of these, he considers a parallel: The sickness which keeps him in bed forces him to think about his spiritual condition. Suffering gets our attention; it forces us to look to God, when otherwise we would just as well ignored Him.
Adapted from PhilipYancey, Where is God When it Hurts?, p. 58.
On a wall in his bedroom Charles Spurgeon had a plaque with Isaiah 48:10 on it: "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." "It is no mean thing to be chosen of God," he wrote. "God's choice makes chosen men choice men...We are chosen, not in the palace, but in the furnace. In the furnace, beauty is marred, fashion is destroyed, strength is melted, glory is consumed; yet here eternal love reveals its secrets, and declares its choice."
W. Wiersbe, Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, p. 223.
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