“Some Christians are called to endure a disproportionate amount of suffering. Such Christians are a spectacle of grace to the church, like flaming bushes unconsumed, and cause us to ask, like Moses:
Why is this bush not burned up?'”
John Newton, Exodus 3:2
It seems that pain is the best teacher. We learn the hard way to come under God’s direction, and we finally learn to love others. Maybe it’s our pain that communicates His grace–is this how God changes us?
After all, the crushed grapes make the wine.
C.S. Lewis once made the comment, (and it’s worth thinking about), that “experience is the most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” We face many obstacles, run into quite a few dead ends, and along the way we learn that when we really hurt, we start to teach something that the Church desperately needs.
My discipleship has been chock full of challenges. I’ve lost the use of my right arm, I have struggled with depression. I had a brain tumor removed, and must walk with a cane. I struggle with intense fatigue. I now have severe issues with pain. (I no longer pastor a church or teach in a Bible college.)
In November 1999, my wife and I lost a child.
I have prayed earnestly for a complete healing and had others pray for me. It’s funny, but all of this has happened after I became a Christian disciple! I often ask myself why? Why did God allow this to happen?
What did I do to deserve all of this?
Paul and Barnabas came into an interesting place (we can read about it in Acts 14.)
“Strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
Acts 14:22, ESV
Some Bible teachers we listen to on the internet choose to minimize suffering, and of course we adopt a lot of our own theology to factor out pain and difficulty. But is this what the Bible teaches? If we read Hebrews 11, we find that life could be pretty grim for those with faith in God.
“Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.”
Why does it have to be so hard for us as believers in Jesus?
Common sense suggests that things should get easier for those who believe. We somehow think that God rewards faith with instant glory. But I painfully discovered that my discipleship, my faith, doesn’t mean some wonderful existence on this planet. It seems that pain becomes the way we grow up and mature in Him.
I honestly believe, after over 40 years of following Jesus, that suffering is part of God’s plan for me.
It has never been easy. It never was. And I wish it was different.
My God, I wish it was different.
No matter what you are going through, remember that God always loves you. He has chosen us to navigate us through much difficulty. We must however, convert these painful things by our faith in Him. And only our faith does this.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28
“We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Broken Believers 