Reflections on Suffering, Part 2

I heard a radio preacher talking recently about Hebrews 12 and 2 Corinthians 12 and it resonated with some of my own feelings of desolation lately. His comment, "Progress without pain is not possible," struck me. But it's no fun dying to stuff. It's not something you look forward to. People don't usually go around inviting pain and death into their lives. We usually try to avoid it at all costs.

So what are we supposed to do with pain? A friend of mine once said to me, "Pain is gonna mess up your life again." And that's what it does. It messes up the status quo. It messes up what we had planned. It messes things up when things seem to be going okay. I guess it's God's way of reminding us we're not in charge of what's going on.

I think of the pain of women in childbirth, and the pain of a child getting new teeth. This kind of pain is always off-set by a joyful outcome we mortals can easily make out. Something wonderful is happening. Other stuff in life is not so transparent or easy to swallow. We don't get to see the WHY until years later.

The bottom line is that we don't have God's perspective on what our suffering means and how God is going to use it for his glory. Hmph. And that's what's so difficult about it. It's not just the suffering, but the question of, "Why the heck is this happening to me Lord?" As Viktor Frankl talks about is his book, Man's Search for Meaning, in which he relays his experience of surviving the Nazi death camps,"He who knows the why" for his existence, will be able to bear almost any "how."

When you think about it, Christ did courageously go through the Agony in the Garden, false accusations by the Pharisees and Scribes, torture at the hand of the Roman soldiers, and the Crucifixon at Cavalry, dying for our sins - - but he knew WHAT he was being asked to do and WHY. He knew that he was going to die and rise again. But we, on the other hand, don't know how God wants to use our suffering. That's the hard part about our faith. We have to trust that he is going to breathe new life into us through the many deaths in our lives. Trusting.

It's a hard thing to rationalize and trust sometimes. It's easier to doubt than trust.

In John 15, Jesus says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He prunes away every barren branch, but the fruitful ones he trims clean to increase their yield . . . I am the vine, you are the branches. He who lives in me and I in him, will produce abundantly."

This is so easy to see and digest at the 30,000 foot level, but when you're in the middle of it, what are you supposed to think? Jesus, you just trimmed clean my job, you just trimmed clean my girlfriend, and you just trimmed clean my dad's health. This must be what Job felt like.

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul says that the Lord told him, after he asked three times for the thorn in his flesh to be removed, "My grace is enough for you, for in my weakness power reaches perfection." What I see is pain and weakness. I want to see the WHY. I want to see how he is using this to his perfection. I want to see what is pleasing to him.