LIE: Suffering is bad

Lie:      Suffering is bad and is to be avoided.

Truth: Suffering is good if embraced with hope in God.

Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. — Hebrews 12:11

Suffering comes in many forms and from many sources. But all forms of suffering are ultimately redeemable by God, even from the most evil sources and means. Some suffering is temporary, some permanent; some physical, some emotional; some mental, some genetic; some suffering is purely from malicious sources, some are purely random and uncaused; some suffering that we endure is caused by our own sins and failures; some purely by the sins of others; some suffering stems from our righteous acts or character (in the face of evil), some purely because of the righteous acts and character of others to which we are associated.

The bottom line is that no suffering that we endure, whether temporary, permanent, physical, mental, emotional, intentional, random, caused by our own sins or righteousness or the sins or righteousness of others — no suffering is to be rejected as ‘bad.’ God wants to use all of it, to use it to redeem us, to teach us, to change us more into his likeness.

Your suffering could be minor: headaches, car problems, weather. In that case, praise him and rejoice; or your suffering could be serious: chronic medical conditions, marital issues, unruly or wayward children, financial loss. Or your suffering could be very serious, even life-threatening: terminal illness, death threats, homelessness, suicidal depression. No matter how ‘bad’ your suffering, it is not bad in the sense that it is to be rejected or resisted.

That said, I in no way want to trivialize or minimize any suffering as if it were nothing or not real. No, the pain and loss is real, and yet with God there is always real hope.

Since the curse upon Adam and Eve, human beings have searched long but never found any loop holes to it. Adam was to work under the sweat of his brow; Eve to deliver her babies in pain. Their lives were to be constrained, hardened, felt. But this hardship was to remind them that they really could not run far from God or really ever be independent of him, contrary to what the serpent had told them. Their pain served to call them back to him.

Modernity, even with its endless stream of conveniences and comforts, can never release us – no matter how privileged we are – from the original curse. What once was a physical hardship has now only shifted and taken on a mental and emotional color. For example, to some extent, all of us feel the mental pain of loneliness, the apparent meaninglessness of a soulless assembly line work, the silent anguish of loss. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, suffering follows us.

Jonah, Joseph, Jeremiah . . . to Jesus himself. Let’s take a few worst-case scenarios: Let’s say you foolishly dove into the shallow waters of Chesapeake Bay and injure your spinal cord. Joni Eareckson Tada did this very thing. Her suffering was severe, both physically and mentally, and was caused, not by any altruism, or evil power. It was caused by her own rash action, which to me seems to make it even more difficult to accept that it could be redeemable. Suffering for a noble cause would be easier to swallow, but from a senseless act – really Lord, you can redeem that? The answer is: Yes he can! And not just to make life bearable. Joni rose up in Spirit, calling upon God. And because of it, she has risen to a whole new level. Her attitude and her trust in Jesus Christ saved her and made her a mighty woman of God with a global audience.

But it didn’t remove her suffering. She still must move about with a motorized wheelchair and re-learn how to dress, sleep, eat, write, and just about everything else. No, what happened to Joni Eareckson Tada was that the suffering in her life made her better; she overcame by becoming bigger than the problem of paralysis. God enlarged her by his Spirit. It was either that or spiral into despair.

Now let’s take a scenario on the opposite side of the spectrum: let’s imagine you’ve killed a child in cold blood (again, worst-case scenario). You’re now languishing on death row and you’re hated by everyone: guards, inmates and the family whose daughter you took. Further, you hate yourself for what you’ve done. And you assume that God must hate you too, until one day a fellow inmate tells you the good news. He tells you to turn from your sins and yield to and follow Jesus Christ. You’re still on death row, still hated, but your sincere and humble confession to the family begins to melt them; over time they start to believe that this is no jail-house conversion. The guards and inmates notice your face seems less severe – you smile more and scowl less. You do small kindnesses not required of you. But most of all the self-hatred and guilt and depression are gone and you’ve started to accept the reality of God’s great love.

In this case, the suffering acts as a fork in the road. The choice is simple: hope or despair. And this is the choice we all have as we face our own unique form of suffering. Most of the time, at least in the West, we can mask our suffering with various forms of escape and pleasure, but this only serves to hollow us out further. It’s better, much better to squarely face whatever kind of deep pain is there and then turn to Jesus as the Savior and Master that he is. He is the only one who truly understands and knows what you’re going through. He feels your pain because he’s been there and faced things that we can only barely imagine.

No matter what kind of suffering you’re going through, all of it is within the reach of our mighty God – he alone can redeem it and make it good.

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. — Hebrews 4:14–16

See also the introduction to this category: Lies about self-security.