Tag: Suffering

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When You See No Light

Have you ever had a time when people were talking about how great it is to know the Lord and how comforting it is, and you just thought, “No way. I don’t feel that at all.”

When you are in great suffering, to hear people talk about hope and how good the Lord has been can feel hollow and make you feel even more isolated. Who are these people, you think, who have no real struggles?

That’s one thing I love about the Psalms. They are made for people with struggles. They contain great declarations of faith, but those declarations are often made after deep struggles with the hard realities of their situation.

On the other hand, sometimes you just can’t see the light. You struggle. You pray. You process. And you still can’t see the light. Psalm 88 tells us of one such person.

Psalm 88 begins like many other psalms. “Lord, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you” (Psalm 88:1). However, as the Psalm develops, he says, “I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death” (v. 3). It never moves to a high point from there. It simply concludes. “You have taken from me friend and neighbor—darkness is my closest friend” (Ps. 88). And that’s the end.

It’s rather remarkable that there is a song like this in the Bible. It’s not really what a person might expect. I love our worship songs and hymns, but you wouldn’t guess that this would be one of the songs in the Bible based on what we sing in church. It’s a really dark psalms that speaks of a person who is overwhelmed and struggling with the toughest things in life.

So, what are we to do with this “dark” psalm?

First, we should remember that people feel this way sometimes. We should remember that not everyone can easily see the light. We should be patient with them and allow them to process their darkness without being “miserable comforters,” as Job called his friends.

Second, you may feel that way right now. This is a Psalm for you. You can pray this psalm or something like it and present your feelings exactly as you are to God. Even if your feelings aren’t this strong now, it shows you that you can bring your struggles to God. Even if they aren’t that strong to day, it’s good to think of the future and how you may use this psalm later.

Finally, they point us to the suffering of Christ. The psalms tell us of ourselves, and they also tell us of Christ. Christ said while he was on earth, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Ps. 26:38). When we are struggling, we are dealing with a God who has experienced what it means to have “sorrow to the point of death.” That’s why the author of Hebrews tells us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb. 4:15–16).

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Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash

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When Your Heart Is Broken (Psalm 6)

The death of someone close to us is one of the hardest things that we can experience in this life. We have to say good-bye to someone we love dearly. We don’t just get over it. We have to take time it and process the depth of the loss. Funerals are designed to help us process these losses in the presence of God and friends. Funerals are one of the few times in our culture where we stop to process our emotions and allow people to cry things out.

Unfortunately, there are many other times that we experience grief where we do not process it. We might not notice the fact that we are dealing with grief and sadness. Occasions of grief are transitions of family members, our own transitions, our own sins, sins of others, losses of jobs, losses of dreams or visions, losses of friendship, divorce, broken relationships, loss of opportunities, and much more.

What happens when we don’t process it? It stays there as a continual irritation. We struggle and don’t make the transition to a new place, opportunity, or situation. We lose the ability to meet people and things as they are and where they are.

Life is a series of good-byes, and we need to learn to say good-bye well. A few years ago, I was talking with someone about their family situation. They wished that their family were different. I asked this person, has your family ever been different? They said, “no.” I said to them, “I think you have had a dream for your family, and that dream was never realized. You need to accept the pain of the loss of the good family you had hoped for and wanted to have. Then, you can transition to accept the family that you actually have.” They actually set aside time to do this. They grieved the loss they had experienced from their family, and this enabled them to move forward with a new reality.

In our Psalm (6), we have that sort of experience. The Psalmist is writing about a time when he had to transition to a much more difficult time. He had to say good-bye to his home, family, and comforts. This caused him tears. “I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears” (Psalm 6:6). Tears are God’s gift to enable us to process loss.

In times of loss, we may feel like God is against us. That’s exactly what the Psalmist felt. “Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath” (Psalm 6:1). The Psalmist felt the anger of the Lord, and so he went to the Lord to talk about it. Notice that the Psalmist expressed his thoughts directly to the Lord. Sometimes when we feel like God is against us, we speak to others about God. Through this Psalm, God invites us to come and share our thoughts with Him, to come boldly to the throne of grace.

One of the most helpful things is to cry in front of others. Remember that this psalm is not just a private prayer. It is meant to be a song of the church. It was the psalmist’s way of processing his grief before the Lord and before people.

And what was the result of crying it out and crying out to the Lord? “The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer” (6:9). He had a sense that the future would turn out OK. He had a sense that God was for him. He had a sense that he could move forward.

That’s what can happen to us, too. I have found this axiom to be true: what comes to the light heals, what stays in the dark hurts. The things that we process by giving attention to them will begin to heal. As long as they stay in our hearts or as long as we don’t grieve them, they tend to keep hurting us. Bringing the grief to light can help us begin a healing process.

So, it’s worth considering when we are struggling, is my anger or worry the result of grief? Have I lost something that I am missing? If so, it’s time to cry it out. This is God’s gift to help us move forward. Gather a couple of friends. Seek the Lord. It may not happen immediately, but we can move forward with the loss. The pain sometimes never completely goes away, but we can still move forward in service and a greater confidence in the future through God’s grace by embracing His grieving process.

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Photo by Louis Galvez on Unsplash

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How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?

If you or someone you love has questions on this issue (as most of us do!), I would encourage you to read Pastor Tim Keller’s New York Times Bestseller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. I really can’t recommend this book highly enough.

In this post, I’d like to summarize what Keller says about this important question: how could a good God allow suffering?

Whether you are a believer or unbeliever, it’s a question you’ve likely asked at some point in your life, maybe often.

Keller says that there are two ways we can ask this question. The first is intellectual. How can we logically say that a good God could allow evil? The second is emotional. We get angry at a God who would allow such evil.

Let’s consider what Keller says about each in turn.

The Intellectual Issue
In regard to the intellectual question, Keller begins with the objection of a philosopher who states essentially: “because there is much unjustifiable, pointless evil in the world, the traditional good and powerful God could not exist” (23).

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The God Who Rights All Wrongs (Obadiah)

[Listen to an audio version here]

There are many things that we can suffer in this world, but none is worse than what we can suffer from our fellow human beings. Animals may fight for food, territory, and mates, but the imagination of human beings can come up with endless ways to inflict cruelty on one another. The injustice of humans toward one another is truly astonishing.

Once people get their eyes on something, they can commit almost any cruelty in order to achieve it. They can harm anyone without mercy. I spoke to a person not too long ago who started a business after years of hard work. Then, their spouse left them for another person and stole everything they had. The business collapsed. They went to court, but there was no way to get it back because both their names were on the account. The world is filled with things like this.

These things justly make us angry. Anger is a legitimate response to injustice and prepares us for action. However, in many, many cases, there is nothing we can do about it. Then, it just sits in our hearts. When it does this, it eats away at us and can embitter everything in our lives. We know about some of this anger, but we also have a lot of anger hidden in the depths of our spirit.

The question is, what do we do with it? How do we keep the wrong-doer from harming us twice? From the wrong that they commit against us and from turning us into bitter, angry people? The prophet Obadiah provides for us a vision of God that can enable us to move past the injustices of the past, not by ignoring the wrong but by committing it to the God who rights all wrongs. We will see this here in the wrong of Edom, its reckoning with God, and the restoration of Israel. So, we will see the wrong, the reckoning, and the restoration.

The Wrong of Edom
The kingdom of Edom was to the south of Israel. There lived the descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob. If you read the book of Genesis, you will find that Jacob and Esau wrestled with one another. Even in the womb, they were so active that Rebekah, their mother, considered them to be wrestling in the womb. This continued throughout their lives, and this wrestling manifested itself in their descendants and their nations. Just look up the word Edom in a concordance or on Biblegateway.com, and you will find that their relationship was not a good one.

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We Told You Life Would Be Hard (1 Thessalonians 2:14–3:5)

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The Inevitability of Suffering
Jordan Peterson is an interesting modern thinker. His book 12 Rules for Life has sold 3 million copies. He has toured the world speaking about these rules, giving long academic-style lectures to large audiences. As Jordan Peterson spoke around the world, one thing really surprised him. When he spoke about the inevitability of suffering and how hard life is, people were really encouraged. Why? Because everyone experiences hardships, and it can feel some like something unique to us. It’s good to know that it’s not something strange just happening to us. Suffering is part of life. Life is hard.

Modern life can deceive us on this point. Our industrial might has enabled us to overcome so many problems that our ancestors over the centuries and millennia struggled with such as basic clothing, shelter, and food. Because of this, we begin to think that life will be easy. The trouble is that industrialization simply solves some problems to reveal further problems on a higher level. We may have food in abundance, but we can’t solve our anxiety, loneliness, death, or need for meaning. For all our scientific know-how, we can’t achieve social cohesion.

So, everyone is going to suffer. Everyone will experience pain. The question is, what will we do with it? Will we rise to the occasion, or we will be crushed under its weight? Will we take the blows, get back up, and keep moving forward; or, will we retreat from the challenges of life and try to build a suffering-free bubble?

All of life has challenges, but Christianity has additional challenges. Much that is in this world is hostile to our faith. There will be attacks. How do we process this? How can we think about this in a way that will help us move forward?

The first thing to do is accept the truth: we will face opposition and suffering. When someone comes to Christ, we should tell them, get ready for trials. Get ready for suffering. Prepare for battle. Start training. This will be no cake walk. Prepare to get punched in the mouth.

The Apostle Paul says this very plainly. He did not want them to be be “unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we are destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know” (1 Thess. 3:3–4). He kept telling them, Christianity is not going to be easy. You will be persecuted.

There are two basic difficulties that we face here. The first is from outside. This was a significant factor in Thessalonika. “For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews” (1 Thess. 2:14). When we seek to do something good, we should expect to face opposition from people. This is inevitable. So, don’t be surprised.

The resistance goes beyond people, though. It also comes from Satan. Beyond the world that we see, there is a real spiritual world of evil with real personalities that are attacking us. “I was afraid that in some way the tempter had tempted you and that our labors might have been in vain” (1 Thess. 3:5).

But the most important struggle we have is the struggle within. Our own brain, spirit, and body conspire against us to keep us from doing what is right. It’s a battle to move in the right direction. It’s a battle to get ourselves thinking and moving in God’s direction.

The novelist Steven Pressfield wrote a book describing his struggle to write successful novels called The War of Art. He said the biggest challenge was his own “resistance.” So, producing something good was like a war. He had to fight every day the urge to give up and just go off to the beach instead of writing the novel. The struggle against the flesh in the case of our faith is a war of even greater intensity.

Faith Built by Suffering
So, how can we find encouragement in this struggle? The first thing is to accept that suffering and opposition are a part of the Christian life. But that’s just the first thing. The second thing is to re-interpret suffering to see the good in it.

Many people hear the fact that suffering is inevitable and think that this is an unmitigated disaster, but the Bible has a very different perspective. Paul says elsewhere, “we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Rom. 5:3–4).

James says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2–3).

Peter says that we greatly rejoice even though we suffer a variety of trials. There is even something good in them: “These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Pet. 1:7).

The point is that as we experience suffering and then exercise our faith, we grow into what we are supposed to be. There is no higher goal that we can have than to become people who trust God. It’s what the Apostle Paul said in Romans. He prayed that the God of hope would fill them with all joy and peace as they trusted Him.

Faith fills us with joy and peace, but the trials and opposition we experience can knock us off our game. They keep us from joy and peace and dim our faith.

In the case of the Thessalonians, however, they did not have a lot of experience. They were just getting started. They seemed to be doing well, but they had not yet felt the rattle of their teeth from blows in the midst of battle. That’s why the Apostle Paul was concerned that they would “be unsettled by these trials.”

However, Paul knew that if they could exercise their faith in the midst of the trials, then the virtue of faith would grow within them. It would produce perseverance, an ability to keep doing good in the face of opposition. This perseverance would build their character. This character would make them complete.

So, the stakes were very high for the Thessalonians. Would they rise to the occasion and become the people of faith, hope, joy, and peace that God designed them to be, or would they be thrown into turmoil by the trials? Would the tempter successfully induce them to abandon their destiny, or would they remain faithful to the Word of God?

Support in the Midst of Suffering
The stakes are high in the battle we face, but we are not without support. Even though we undergo sufferings, we should not think we have to do it alone. We have resources. We have the Holy Spirit, we have the new nature, and we have the people of God. If you are struggling with your faith today, come back to the community! We can help. If you are here and struggling, share it with one of these friends.

The whole context here is Paul’s support and concern for the Thessalonians. He wanted them to know that he left unwillingly and was kept from helping them in person unwillingly, but he was still a resource for them. He said, “For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy” (1 Thess. 2:19–20). He wanted them to know that his failure to come back did not indicate any lack of affection for them.

In fact, he was so concerned about them that he did not want to leave them without a face-to-face support. So, he says, “we sent Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God’s service in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith . . .” (1 Thess. 3:2). Each of us have Timothy’s and Paul’s and Silas’ that we can turn to when we need support in the battle.

As a Pastor, a colleague of Pastors, and a friend, I have spoken to many about their struggles. They come sometimes with great trepidation, but they are almost always glad that they shared their struggle. They find that they are not alone and that people still accept them in spite of their failings and sins. There is support in suffering!

Conclusion
Let me speak to three groups of people here today. You may be experiencing some severe suffering today. You may want simply to be rid of it, but can I encourage you to look at in a different way? Can I encourage you to see that this as part of life and as part of the life of faith? Can I encourage you to see it as walking the path of Christ who first suffered and then entered into His glory? Can I encourage you to see it as an opportunity to trust God and so develop the most important characteristic that you can have as a human being?

Maybe you are not experiencing a large degree of suffering today. Maybe you’re just experiencing the small challenges that we all face in living day to day life. Can I encourage you to not let those things go to waste? Use them as an opportunity for training. Commit yourself to trusting God whatever the day brings at you.

What does this look like? First, make it a goal. Make it a goal to trust God throughout your day. Ask for His help. Ask for strength to face the day with trust that leads to love and peace. This means that you keep trusting even when it’s hard and keep showing respect to the people around you no matter what.

Second, if you fail, then analyze what happened and consider how you might have viewed the situation differently. How did you respond when you didn’t get all the work done you needed to? Did you trust God with your status and security? Or did you start to panic?

How did you respond to a broken relationship? Did you repent for what you needed to repent of and leave that person in God’s hand? Or did you let yourself get frustrated as if the relationship was ultimately up to you?

How did you respond to ongoing health problems? Did you fall into despair as if you were abandoned? Or, did you trust that God would be with you and help you every step of the way? These are just a few examples of the way we can dedicate our lives to God and continue to develop trust, even in life’s hard circumstances.

Third, keep doing it. Keep making it a goal. There is nothing more important than becoming a person who trust God. This is the sole rock and sure foundation for human life, human serenity, and human creativity.

Now, some of you don’t experience suffering because you have insulated yourself from it. This is not faith. God calls us out into the world to exercise our faith in the midst of all its blistering and bruising. Put yourself out there. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations where you know you’ll be challenged. Seek for bigger things. Push out in relationships. Stretch your abilities. Try the heavier weight! Reach out to your neighbor. Invite that person over. Do something! Move into a bigger world. Let’s see your work motivated by your faith and your labor prompted by love.

Yes, it’ll hurt! but it will get you closer to where you want to be. You can’t become your true self by closing yourself off to the world. You become your true self by extending yourself into the world. You learn to meet the world with serenity after you have learned to experience its harshness. You learn to keep loving and serving after you’ve been hurt by others. This is how God develops faith and love within you. This is where God is leading you. So, let’s lean into it . . . together!

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Photo by Edward Howell on Unsplash