Learning to be Thankful for Suffering
I have never understood how some people could say that they were thankful for the trials they had been through in their lives. It almost sounded a little overly pious to me. Like something they were saying because it sounded good but surely no one could really be glad about having suffered. That is, until I went through some serious trials of my own. Now I get it.
Our natural inclination is one of self-preservation. We don’t want to suffer and will, at almost all costs, fight to keep ourselves from having to experience trials and tragedy. In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes,
The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt.
Pain, trials and suffering- that is what makes us more like Christ.
Now, of course, we want to be happy. Unfortunately, we aren’t very good at determining what will really make us happy and so, in our quest for ease and happiness, we unwittingly fight off the very things that could actually bring us true and lasting peace and joy if only we would submit to them.
It is worth noting here that happiness is not the highest good. God is much more concerned with making you holy (Hebrews 12:10). However, I agree with Piper when he says, “…pursuing the highest good will always result in our greatest happiness in the end.” Pursuing God will bring you happiness.
In his book, Trusting God, Jerry Bridges reminds us that suffering is the necessary means that God uses to bring about deep change in our hearts. “The psalmist said, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (Psalm 119: 71). He is speaking of experiential learning. We can learn God’s will for our character intellectually through reading and studying the Scriptures- and we should do that. That is where change begins, as our minds are renewed. But real change- down in the depth of our souls- is produced as the tenets of Scripture are worked out in real life. This usually involves adversity. We may admire and even desire the character trait of patience, but we will never learn patience until we have been treated unjustly and learn experientially to “suffer long” (the meaning of patience) the one who treats us unjustly.”
It has not been the good and carefree times of my life that have brought me closer to God or made me more Christ-like but rather, it’s been the tumultuous times and the times of grief that have made me run to Him and experience more of His love and grace. I can take comfort in the fact that, whatever comes my way, my loving Father has a purpose for it and will be with me through every heart-breaking step. In Isaiah 38: 17 King Hezekiah says, “Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.” What a beautiful picture of his love and care!
Now, don’t get me wrong, I still love the good times and I still don’t look forward to the trials. However, I appreciate the good times so much more because of the hard times. The good times are a wonderful time to reflect on how God brought me through the most recent trial and how he used it for my good. They are a time of rejoicing and thankfulness to God for His great love for me. And when I look back, I can see how much I’ve learned about Him and how much more I am trusting Him and learning to focus my thoughts on Him.
When we as believers struggle to believe, it’s not that we’ve misplaced hope; it’s that we’ve misplaced God, who is our hope. -Ronnie Martin
How easy it is for us to withdraw into ourselves and focus on our feelings and our problems instead of looking to the God of the universe- our Hope! And it is in the process of learning to stop focusing on me and, instead, to run to my Savior and learn to trust in Him and his goodness and sovereignty that I grow more and more into the likeness of Christ.
"I have never heard anyone say, "The deepest and rarest and most satisfying joys of my life have come in times of extended ease and earthly comfort." Nobody says that. It isn’t true. What’s true is what Samuel Rutherford said when he was put in the cellars of affliction: "The Great King keeps his wine there"—not in the courtyard where the sun shines. What’s true is what Charles Spurgeon said: "They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls."
Christian Hedonists will do anything to have the King’s wine and the rare pearls—even go to the cellars of suffering and dive in the sea of affliction. - John Piper
That, my friends, is what makes all the suffering worthwhile. Growing closer to God and becoming spiritually stronger and more like Christ is worth any amount of suffering and any number of trials. This is not to minimize the agony of the very real pain you feel during that time but to encourage you that as you struggle and cry out to God, that you can take comfort that He hears you and that He cares. Understand and cling to the knowledge that you are His child and he will not let your suffering or your trust in Him be in vain.
