Suffering: A Gift?

While suffering is ever present on this earth, sometimes we're more aware of it than at other times because it touches us a little more closely. Right now, two families in our church are going through some especially difficult trials involving cancer. One couple's adult son has relapsed with a cancer that was initially diagnosed nine years ago, and a risky surgery has not produced the results they had hoped for. Another man, a dear friend of Henry's that he went to high school with, is now on hospice care; he's been battling cancer for some time now, and it seems that the cancer has become more aggressive in recent months. He's suffered horrible pain. While a recent surgery seems to have helped with the problem of the pain for the moment, his doctor offers him little hope that his life will last much longer.

Recently, I was talking with the mother of the adult man who has had such a disappointing relapse, and she was telling me about her son's great faith and how he had been encouraging her to trust in God's providence. She shared with me that in spite of all the difficulties, good things were happening for their family, too. I told her that when my first husband had been diagnosed with leukemia, a minister friend of ours had made what seemed, at the time, a startling statement. In fact, it made me angry. He told us that suffering was God's gift to the church.

At the time, I couldn't see how any suffering could possibly be a gift. I had just buried my 20-year-old sister in 1990, and now, in 1995, my husband was being treated for leukemia. I was facing the possibility of being a 33-year-old widow with two babies to raise alone. For me, suffering was a curse; there could be no possible value in suffering.

And that is one choice we can make when suffering enters our lives: We can allow it to drive a wedge between ourselves and God, to distance ourselves from Him, the One who has provided an ultimate solution for suffering. We forget that there is One who has suffered a far greater agony than we could ever know so that one day our suffering will be completely, finally ended . . . forever. I know about this choice because it is the one I made, sadly, for a long time. It doesn't result in peace or contentment. Thankfully, God did not leave me wallowing in that abysmal choice.

This recent brush with suffering has made me think again about how suffering is a gift to the church. Of course it affects us as individuals, and if the Holy Spirit is using suffering in our lives to produce fruit, we will come to the place of the first beatitude in Matthew 5: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The poor in spirit are those who recognize their inability to do anything for themselves; they understand their complete dependence on God. And when suffering does its work, you come to a point when you realize that all you have that can be counted on is God's presence. But you also come to realize that His presence is truly all that you need and that without it, nothing else would really matter.

Isaiah 43:2-4 speaks beautifully of this gift of God's presence: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned . . . For I am the Lord your God . . . You are precious and honored in my sight." And why is all of this true? Verse 1 tells us why: "I have summoned you by name; you are mine."

I came to a greater grasp of these truths after walking a path of suffering. And because I've been through the waters and the fire (and will undoubtedly experience them again someday), I know they won't destroy me because God is with me. That is the realization that God's gift of suffering produces. And the other result I hope it produces in me is that now I can serve the church in a better, more mature way. I know the importance of weeping with those who weep, of praying for God's strength and comfort for them, of encouraging them to keep on going, even though the waters are deep and the fire is hot.

Suffering is certainly not a gift that I wish for--for myself or for others. And yet it is necessary for our refinement, for our understanding of who God is and who we are--that we are not our own and could never find the way out of our suffering by ourselves. The conclusion of it all for Job is this: "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you." And having seen Him, we see ourselves and our utter weakness and inability to help ourselves. Then we can come to a beginning of our eternal thankfulness for our Immanuel, "God with us." And in gratitude, we join with our brothers and sisters in their suffering, so even though God is with them, they have the earthly comfort that we are as well.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient,shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.