Redemptive Reality in Human Suffering

Over the course of my life I have come to accept that loneliness is a part of life. It is the inevitable consequence of living in a fallen world corrupted by sin that we are going to suffer bouts of loneliness from time to time. But it's one thing to feel the temporary pang of loneliness & another thing to feel the soul crushing weight of alienation that comes from real suffering. Where the one is usually just a matter of being alive the other is the product of an ongoing trial. Where the one can feel extremely painful in the moment but soon passes the other can be utterly devastating and only seems to stay. Where time seems to heal the one, it only worsens the other. And so it goes for the human heart where loneliness is concerned.

Now up until recently I had only ever experienced the first kind of loneliness. It is only in the last few months of watching my wife suffer from cancer & chemo that I've begun to feel the weight of that other soul crushing loneliness I described before. And while I haven't resigned myself to despair just yet, I have been tempted to do so at times, even as a believer in Christ. But that's not why I'm writing this. Neither is the point to boast or make some speech about how "I pulled myself up by the spiritual boot straps" nor is it to complain about how difficult our life is now that my wife has cancer. The world is filled with those sorts of statements. I don't think it would do any good to make another. No. I have written for a different purpose entirely, one I hope will be more of a benefit to you than that.

I want to share with you an unshakable reality that has literally sustained me through the worst trial of my life. It is a reality that defies the worst kinds of loneliness alienation & suffering any trial in this life can bring, a reality that will not be silenced by or falter in any prolonged season of hardship. It is a living truth that can only benefit the believer if they are willing to accept it & base their whole lives around it. It is a revelation for every son & daughter in Christ to hold on to if they will only learn to accept it.

Now I'd be lying if I said I fully comprehend this reality myself or even appropriate it as much as I need to. That just isn't the truth. And I know it. I even suspect I’m writing this to remind myself more than anything of what I already know and need to hear. (the Holy Spirit has a funny way of speaking to me through my own mouth at times...probably because He knows that's when I'm REALLY listening). Even so I hope you'll take the time to read this. You never know…you might just need to hear it yourself.

And this is what I know. This is what I've learned over the past few months watching my wife endure her physical suffering. The heart wasn't created to endure so much pain. It wasn't created to suffer anxiety & sadness, heartache & sorrow, any more than it was created to suffer the pangs of death. All of these are the natural consequences of the curse, the product of living in a fallen world corrupted by sin. We weren't created to suffer the slings and arrows of pain & death but to have life and that more abundantly.

Death (and everything else that goes with it) is the manifestation of the curse, unnatural now to the naturally created order. But that's not to say the All-knowing All-powerful All-Wise Creator of the universe did not create us with these realities in mind. That simply isn't true either & the Bible makes that plain. Our God knew full well what we would become when He made us and created us anyway. It's not that our pain is a surprise to Him or something He must overcome to work His purpose in us. It is something that while unnatural to us still exists to bring Him glory for our incomprehensible benefit. And it is important that we see that especially if we are suffering or watching someone else we love enduring suffering.

You see if we aren't careful and we do not remember what God has revealed to us in the scripture about our suffering we can easily slip into a never ending cycle of self pity, isolation & loneliness to our further detriment & pain. That’s because it's now the natural disposition of our heart (because of sin) to go inward when we are hurting instead of reaching out to the one who can help us. And the devil knows this. He knows that we were created with an outward focus in mind (to love our God & other people...for our benefit & for theirs).

He knows that it's our natural bend now to only think of our self when we are sad, to go hopelessly & helplessly inward when we are in pain, to withdraw from everyone we know & love (even the One who loved us & saved us) to our harm. That is why he presses so hard against us in our thoughts when we are hurting. That is why he's so relentless in our pain. He knows if he can draw our attention away from those who love us & the One who saved us, he can lead us away into a never ending cycle of self-imposed torment from which we cannot escape on our own even if we try. And it is his delight to hurt us.

And He does... all the time...at least that has been my personal experience as of late. But where does that leave us? What do we do having been sucked in? How do we escape the inescapable vortex our sadness creates (and the devil exploits) in our tragedy which only causes us more pain, pushing us further into ourselves? How do we escape the inevitable dilemma of this unending cycle? The answer I have found in my own situation is really quite simple. I must return to the revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in scripture & the hope that is promised to me there in it.

More specifically I must revisit the person & work of Jesus Christ on my behalf in redemption. By saturating my heart & mind with the truth of the Gospel & more importantly what Jesus suffered on my behalf, I am confronted with the reality of the love of God in Christ, the truth that because He has conquered the grave in my place even my pain has a purpose. My suffering is not in vain because it is working on my behalf to perfect in me a lasting character, the character of the One who saved me beating the devil at his own game, redirecting my focus. Let me explain.

As I begin to turn my attention away from myself & the problems I face toward the Love of God in Christ I am inevitably overcome by the reality of everything He has done for me on my behalf. I am humbled by the way He lowered himself, laying down His life for my sake. I am awed by the pain he experienced for me dying in my place so I can be free. I am grateful for the living hope I now have in Him being reconciled to the Father in His name and filled with His Spirit. Before I know it, the gospel has already begun to refocus my heart & mind on the love of God in Christ.

And the product of that change of focus is a change of heart. And I begin to see my own suffering in the light of His. I begin to feel the weight of what He did in my place instead of the weight of my pain. And I am humbled once again. So that now where all I could think about before was my own terrible circumstance now by the grace of God I begin to think of the One who saved me & the conditions he endured to redeem me. And now I'm thinking about my family & all of the people God has given me to reach out to me in our trial. And I am grateful for the love His body has lavished on us in His name.

But it doesn't just stop there. Because as soon as the revelation of the Gospel has taken root in my heart & manifested itself in my life, the Spirit of God takes me even deeper, further into the mysteries of God in Christ than I've ever been before. And now I'm thinking about our resurrected bodies, meditating on the promise of a newly restored earth, and what it will be like to worship God for all eternity in His very presence without sin or self to distract me. I realize I have nothing to give him for all of this and I am only speechless. I remember that to suffer is to fellowship with the suffering savior, to worship in suffering is an honor the angels don't get to have. And before I know it I'm humbled again by the privilege I get to share in the gospel.

Now a few things before I continue. FIRST: It is not a one-time thing, this sort of gospel redirection. It happens over a lifetime of walking with God and is no small matter of discipline & persistence. Since human pain is inevitable & constant, life hard & the heart cruel I must daily have my mind realigned to the reality of it. I must daily return and be confronted by it no matter how I feel or what I am going through at the moment.  And SECOND: There is nothing inherently wrong with feeling pain or being lonely in the midst of a trial. That is not the point of what I'm saying at all. It is no more spiritual to act like we have everything together in a trial than it is to quote bible verses like they were some kind of spiritual badge of accomplishment when we are suffering.

No the point that I am trying to make is that, where suffering is concerned, it is always best for believers in Christ to have a redemptive perspective of reality no matter what they are going through. And since we do not naturally have this perspective (because of sin & self) we must constantly seek to be confronted by it daily until it finally begins to sink in and change the way we think. And if anyone other than Christ understood that it was the Apostle Paul himself. And His writings only prove it.

Consider the fact that he always began his letters with the gospel indicative (what God has already done for us & still doing in Christ) before he moved on to the central imperative (what our lives should look like if we really believe it). Perhaps that's even why he chose to answer the carnal challenges of the Corinthian church by redirecting their attention to the eternal perspective. Instead of gloating over some superficial spiritual work he had accomplished on his own he chose to share the testimony of his own humiliation & suffering with them and the lesson God gave to him in it. What better way to silence the carnal accusations of the flesh than to repeat the words of Christ to Him by the Spirit?

What better way to pull US out of our selves, to ground us in the gospel & deliver us from Satan in our own trials than to hear the words of Christ to Paul in his own suffering? (I am humbled as I write this, because even now I am reminded why I started writing in the first place. I need to hear this. Oh how I need to hear this...every single day & in every single way as often as I can! I need to hear this).

"[God's] grace is sufficient (for me). [His] power is made perfect in [my] weakness." -2 Cor. 12:9

In my loneliness & tiredness when I am doubting & afraid, when the woman I love more than life itself begins to grow weak & lose her hair from the chemo, when my children begin to fuss because I cannot give them all of me every moment of the day, when I feel alone, like no one understands me or feel like a hollow empty shell, His grace is always sufficient for me. Always. Sufficient. For me.

Like the Corinthian church I need to hear this, to be confronted with the reality of it daily especially in my difficulty. I need to be confronted with the single truth that any suffering I might experience in this life cannot be compared with the suffering the Son of God endured in my place. I need to be reminded that there is no greater love than the love He poured out for me in His suffering. I need to remember that the love of God extends beyond my initial salvation & provides me a living hope that will pull me out of my sadness, if I am only willing to believe it.

I need to be saturated with Jesus, who He is and what He gave for me. And if you are anything like me then you must need that too. And I haven't just written for me today. And you haven't read this in vain.

Saints of God please listen to me. If we are willing to see it for what it is in the light of our Redemption, our suffering is really the blessing of God to break us, to remake us & renew us, to change us & to grow us, to ground us & to free us, to ultimately reveal to us the glorious inheritance God has given us, His patient pilgrims through the Gospel of our salvation in Christ Jesus which is only for our benefit. And that is a reality that will sustain us if we are only willing to believe it.