the gift of suffering

*http://www.christieart.com/images/suffering.jpg


"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way" (James 1:2-4 The Message)

Pain that cannot forget
falls drop by drop
upon the heart
until in our despair
there comes wisdom
through the aweful grace of God
-Aeschylus

Yesterday we confronted a difficult idea that presents itself in scripture: the gift of suffering. It's not that we become a bunch of crazed sadomasochists who just love the actual feeling of pain (for that you'll have to talk to Aaron and Tim about what they did yesterday afternoon). It's not a delight in the pain, but rather a perspective that sees beyond the pain; a perspective that embraces the presence of pain as a source of something good (rather than avoiding it at all costs).

It's perhaps a bit like the perspective that an athlete takes when they train for competition. It's not that they love the feeling of pain, it's that they have learned, by experience, that their bodies ultimately benefit from the pain they endure while training...it makes them stronger and faster; and so, they are willing to endure it. Any athlete who avoids pain will also avoid excelling.

It's acknowledging that there are two totally different perspectives in our world (in reality many more than two); two sets of lenses through which we might view our suffering. The first perspective holds happiness and personal pleasure as the highest virtue. Pain and suffering, then, become a personal attack on happiness and become the enemy. The goal becomes the elimination of pain as quickly as possible, whatever means necessary.

The second perspective is that of James in 1:2-4. Suffering and "trials of many kinds," although unpleasant at the time, have much to offer us. They test us, and our faith, pushing us forward into virtues that the world has always held as honorable: perseverance, patience, hope, wisdom, passion, strength, and compassion (see Romans 5:3-5). Think of the lives of almost every great human being: Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, George Fox...and don't forget Jesus. These people left lasting marks on our civilization and their accomplishments, teachings, and legacies are dripping wet with their suffering. The things they offered the world (truth, passion, empathy for the oppressed) were born out of their own suffering. None of them shooed pain away as the enemy, nor did they deny that their suffering was painful. But they did allow pain to be the catalyst for goodness and character formation.

Suffering of any kind, even the suffering of temptation, is an opportunity to experience God. As Corrie Ten Boom wrote after her experiences in a concentration camp, "There is no pit too deep, that God is not deeper still." When in the midst of "trials" we turn our gaze to God, who sees and knows our pain, we can find our truest source of peace and hope. When in desperation we cry out to God, he is there; sometimes to relieve the suffering, sometimes to walk with us through it. There is a line from a recent song (artist and song title are unknown) which says, "Sometimes he calms the storm, and other times he calms his child." That is the God I have come to know and experience. I do not blame my pain or suffering on him. Just because God is omniscent (all-knowing) and omnipotent (all-powerful) does not imply that God is omnicausal (causing all things). But I do believe and experience God to be omnipresent, as close as my next heartbeat, breath, and brainwave.

Let's be the kind of people who, instead of denying our pain or seeing it as a barrier between where we are and where we want to be, are the kind of people who embrace it together, in community, and allow it to teach and transform our lives in God-honoring ways.

"If life kicks you, let it kick you forward."