Suffering Of The Saints
Beloved, one aspect of the nature of our existence is suffering. Suffering is bound up with our existence in a world that has fallen under the curse of sin. Since our first parents’ rebellion in Eden, creation itself has been subjected to futility and groaning. Suffering is the common and often perplexing experience of those who live east of Eden. It is not an illusion or a mere appearance; it is the bitter reality that marks life in a world that is broken by sin.
A persistent temptation, when we suffer, is to conclude that every instance of suffering must be the direct and immediate consequence of personal sin. We think: this wouldn’t be happening unless I deserved it. This was the assumption of the disciples when they saw the man born blind: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). It was the error of Job’s friends, who insisted that such great affliction on Job could only mean great hidden guilt. We are quick to imagine that if we are suffering, we must have sinned; we must have practiced some unrighteousness in some particular way to bring it upon ourselves. We imagine that God is simply giving us our comeuppance.
Our Lord Jesus Christ corrects this misconception with the compassion of a shepherd and the clarity of a teacher. He says: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). The affliction was not punishment for a specific sin of the man or his parents. It existed for a higher, God-glorifying purpose. The same Lord who spoke these words would, Himself, endure the deepest and most gruesome suffering, though He was without sin. He was “a man of sorrows” and a man “acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), and He “learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). If the sinless Son of God was acquainted with suffering, we cannot assume that every trial in our lives is God’s judicial response to our personal transgressions.
What then are the reasons for suffering in the life of the Christian? Scripture reveals several purposes, all of which are under the wise and loving hand of God. Suffering is often the Father’s loving discipline, intended to mortify remaining sin and train us in holiness. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6). It is also a means of refining and proving our faith, “so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7). Trials equip us to comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from God (2 Corinthians 1:4). And frequently, suffering becomes the very stage upon which the power and grace of Christ are most clearly displayed, as when the apostle Paul learned that Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
C.S. Lewis observed that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Suffering has a way of arresting our attention and exposing our deep need for God in a manner that ease rarely, if ever, achieves.
Yet beneath all these proximate reasons lies the ultimate cause of every event in heaven and on earth: the sovereign providence of our triune God. Nothing in all existence occurs by random chance or outside the eternal decree of Him “who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). Secondary causes—human actions, natural processes, even the malice of the evil one—remain real, but they operate only within the boundaries of God’s wise and holy decree. Joseph could say to his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). The cross itself was accomplished “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). When the causes of our particular afflictions remain hidden from us, what are we then called to do? We are called to restrain curiosity and rest in the character and promises of the One who ordains all of them. As Moses declared, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
Therefore, beloved, I exhort you: in the midst of suffering, difficulty, pain, exhaustion, and trials, do not lose heart. Do not imagine that God has abandoned you or that your pain has no meaning. For nothing can “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39). Look to Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, who bore the curse in your place so that there is now no condemnation and no ultimate curse upon the afflictions of His people. Cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). Endure with patience, knowing that these “light momentary afflictions are preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). On this Lord’s Day, bring your sorrows into the presence of the risen Christ. Worship Him who has promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). Adore the one who “will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence” and “cover you with his pinions” so that you will not “fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday” (Psalm 91:3-6).
May the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
