Go Ahead, Suffer!

Why is it that we are so afraid to suffer? Our fear of suffering holds us back from so many things. We are wired to avoid pain at all cost. We veer away from uncomfortable new situations. Complacency and comfort take over, but at what cost? What is it that we might have lost in exchange for ease?

I’m confronted with these questions every time I have to decide if I want to take the easy road or the open road, every time I have to decide if I want to take the selfish road or the useful one. Everything about our nature fights for ease and yells, “Don’t enter into suffering.” What if God’s nature does exactly the opposite? What if God’s nature in us is urging us to follow Him wherever He goes?

Just a quick glance over Christ’s life and it’s clear that He was less than comfortable. There were no five star resorts on his list of destinations. He owned little and placed Himself into just about every uncomfortable situation we can imagine, including relying on others, crossing cultural and gender barriers, really loving the difficult, serving with passion and joy, being physically and emotionally tortured, and eventually being killed.

If we really want nothing more than to grow into the likeness of Christ then we have to consider His awesome willingness to suffer and our incredible resistance to it.

The bible is clear that not only should we enter into suffering, we should rejoice in it.

Romans 5:3-8 tells us, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

“What kind of joy can we experience in suffering?” you might ask. If we really understood that God was in everything, and He is, we could begin to take an eternal perspective on our own personal suffering and the suffering of those that need us. If Jesus is our “pearl of greatest price”, and we receive Him while suffering personally or with others, then isn’t the discomfort worth it?

What if what we lose while guarding ourselves so closely is the opportunity to experience the very real and utter sweetness of God’s most tender compassion? As we come to realize that Christ reveals something so great and awesome about Himself in all our struggles, we find ourselves happy to see Him so fully and beautifully in the darkness.

After my husband and I lost our second child our world grew dark. The pain I felt is indescribable. I called my mom on the phone, and what she told me was shocking. She said, “Malisa, I want you to get down on your knees and thank God for this tragedy. I want you ask that it change you in the way our eternal and loving Father wants it to change you.”

Surprisingly, I didn’t reject my mom’s words. Somehow I knew it was truth.

James 1:2-4 tells us, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. “

My sorrow was excruciating, and I didn’t want to experience it in vain. Most importantly, I didn’t want to be changed for the worse. I knew, without a doubt, that I would never be the same again, and if I were going to change I wanted to change in the direction of Jesus.

So I hung up the phone and immediately dropped to my knees in prayer and thanksgiving to my precious Abba Father who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I asked with all sincerity that He would reveal to me what He wanted me to learn from what I consider to be one of the greatest challenges of this life, losing a child. Then I just waited, completely trusting my Father that it was coming. I waited and watched for the beauty.

While I waited I learned about Christ’s own suffering. I learned so much about His heartache. I wept. And as John 11:35 tells us, “Jesus wept.”

The beauty did come.

It came in unexpected ways and from unexpected people, so I could be absolutely certain it was God alone who delivered it. Don't reject the unexpected. Don't hestitate to be used in unexpected ways.

Beauty came after being home alone in sorrow for some time. Most of my closest friends assumed that I wanted some healthy space. What I wanted more than anything was company and to be held.

My God knew the desires of my heart. He used an unexpected person to reveal one of the most amazing things I have yet to learn about the Lord’s character. Without speaking to me, a beautiful angel from my mom’s group drove close to thirty minutes and showed up at my doorstep at 9 pm at night. She said, “I really felt like God wanted me come over here to give you a hug.”

I am so grateful that she trusted Him enough to listen to His unusual call. I will never forget her holding me and letting me cry all over her cheek.

I understood the depth of my God’s outrageous compassion like I have never understood it before. I grew that day.

What a precious gift to feel his sweetness and tenderness. What a gift of God to be allowed the opportunity to know His great goodness and become more like Him in this way.

What did I learn? What did I rejoice in? I understand now the depths of my God’s kindness. I now know his loving compassion.

1 Peter 4:13, “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

Let’s stop being afraid to suffer personally or alongside others. When we stop being afraid of suffering we receive ultimate freedom. Our God is so good, what is a little discomfort?

Let us be bold and obedient as we step out to love those who are hurting.

I believe it was always part of Christ’s plan for us to participate in His great works of love, which include bringing comfort to the suffering. In order to do that we can’t be afraid of suffering with the broken hearted.

This is what Jesus said to Ananias when He commanded him to go and prepare Paul for service to Christ in Acts 9:15-16, “But the Lord said to him (Ananias), ‘Go, for he (Paul) is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake.’”

Let’s receive our freedom as we welcome suffering for His name’s sake, knowing that beauty will always follow.

Father free us, use us, and transform us. Help us to follow you into discomfort and pain. Let us bring tenderness to your loved ones in unexpected ways. Help us to know that you will reveal yourself.

George Matheson wrote, “My soul, reject not the place of thy prostration! It has been thy robing room for royalty. Ask the great ones of the past what has been the spot of their prosperity; they will say, ‘It was the cold ground on which I once was lying.’ Ask Abraham, he will point you to the sacrifice on Moriah. Ask Joseph; he will direct you to his dungeon. Ask Moses; he will date his fortune from his danger in the Nile. Ask Ruth; she will bid you build her monument in the field of her toil. Ask David; he will tell you his songs come from the night. Ask Job; and he will remind you that God answered him out of the whirlwind. Ask Peter; he will extol his submersion in the sea. Ask John; he will give the palm of Patmos. Ask Paul; he will attribute his inspiration to the light which struck him blind. Ask one more – the Son of Man. Ask Him whence has come His rule over the world. He will answer, ‘From the cold ground on which I was lying – the Gethsemane ground; I received My scepter there.’ Thou too, my soul, shalt be garlanded by Gethsemane. The cup thou fain wouldst pass from thee will be they coronet in the sweet by-and-by. The hour of thy loneliness will crown thee. The day of thy depression will regale thee. It is thy desert that will break forth into singing; it is the tress of thy silent forest that will clap their hands…The voice of God to thine evening will be this, ‘Thy treasure is hid in the ground where thou are lying.’”