“Suffering is either having something you don’t want or not having something you do.”
-Elisabeth Elliot
As believers, we often have trouble reconciling suffering. In looking at the horrific suffering of a fellow believer or experiencing it personally, have you ever struggled with these types of thoughts?— “God is fully in control, so if He’s allowing this, He is cruel and can’t be good.” Or “God must not love me or is punishing me.” Or “I know that God is good. So this suffering must be from the enemy because God wouldn’t allow this to happen to someone who loves Him.”
It is true that all suffering began from the enemy. Man’s decision to rebel in the garden opened the floodgate of suffering, pain, and death for all future generations. So, in that sense—yes, suffering is from the enemy. But it’s not true that God doesn’t allow suffering in the lives of people who love Him. The enemy uses this lie to make us question God’s love for us. We only have to look at the lives of early believers to see that they endured unimaginable suffering. The apostle Paul describes his suffering and tells us, “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of…” (2 Timothy 3:12-14). What is it that they were convinced of?
They were convinced of the sovereignty of God. They were convinced of the goodness of God. And they understood that those two things can coexist even in the midst of suffering. They understood that God very often uses suffering for our ultimate good.
Joseph is one of my favorite people in the Bible. His unwavering faith despite difficulties shows that He understood that God uses suffering for His divine purposes. Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers. His integrity won him favor, and he became an attendant of Potiphar, one of Pharoah’s officials. Yet he experienced numerous trials, including false imprisonment. He was eventually released from prison and given charge over all the food sources, which saved the lives of many people during a famine. Despite the injustices he experienced, Joseph held no animosity toward his brothers and trusted God throughout his trials. He understood the concept of God using our suffering for good as he told his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives,” (Genesis 50:20).
You may think, “Well, that’s great for Joseph. But what about me? What about my loved one? I don’t see any good coming out of our suffering. Does God not see me? Does God not care? Where is the good? How can I have hope?”
We CAN have hope in taking these things to a God that we can’t fully understand. There is nothing wrong with taking the questions and cries of our soul to God. It may seem sacrilegious to bring our doubts and questions to God, but it is actually an act of faith to do it. We are acknowledging that God is trustworthy with our deepest doubts and sorrows. We want to be like Joseph, to SEE the good that is coming from our suffering. But God doesn’t promise that we will see it. God doesn’t always give us the reason why. There is no indication in the Bible that Job ever found out why he endured such suffering. It is dangerous for us to demand from God the answer to the why. Some things are not meant for us to know. It was that thirst for forbidden knowledge in the garden of Eden that brought suffering to mankind in the first place. “The secret things belong to God,” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
Instead of focusing on the why, let’s focus on the Who. God is sovereignly in control over even our suffering. Even when we don’t know why, we can trust that God is good and trustworthy because Scripture gives us truths about His character. Instead of searching for the why of suffering, next time search for the promises that help us walk through the suffering. Search for the extra measure of God’s presence that walks with us in a deeper way as we turn to Him in our suffering. God wants us to bring our questions to Him rather than countering them with our own intellect. When we open our hearts to Him in faith, He strengthens our faith to the point of admitting that we don’t have to know; we don’t have to understand, but we will still love and trust Him in faith because we know that He is good. And therein is the good for us. The strengthening of our faith is always a good that comes from suffering. “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. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything,” (James 1:2-4). I want my faith to mature. But sometimes I fight the process that God must use to get me there.
BUT instead of fighting the process, if in the darkest hours of wrestling with your pain…if you stop trying to NOT feel the pain but instead invite God into it, there is a special intimacy with Him that comes from that. David describes this in Psalm 42. He talks of his tears day and night and how other people are even saying that God has deserted him. But his pain caused him to write, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God…put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you…why, my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God,” (Psalm 42 excerpts). David’s desperate need caused him to hunger for God more. And that is good.
When we wonder why God isn’t doing anything about our suffering or about the evil in the world, we can rest in the certainty that He already has. We can look to the cross and know that He has redeemed our suffering. He has put an end to all evil by sending His Son to bear the iniquity of us all. God has already put an end to all pain and suffering. We are just in the waiting room for the culmination of that work. What a glorious assurance we have in the certainty of that hope! We have a hope that triumphs over death, sin, and suffering. We long for Christ’s return with the eternal perspective of seeing an end to the grief and evil of this world. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal,” (2 Corinthians 4:17,18).
Our grief is not sin, but it’s also not a license to sin. We have to be willing to let grief do its work in us. “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” (Psalm 139:23,24). We can ask God to help us discern if we are letting our emotions lead us toward sinful thinking. Next time we have thoughts of “This isn’t the way it should be” or “This isn’t fair,” we can change those thoughts to “This is what God has ordained for me.” We can ask God to help us trust His will and His goodness. We can rejoice and be sorrowful at the same time. And God is there in the midst of it.
Roots of Faith
Lord, like a knife this hurt has come
To slice me to the core.
I’m so overwhelmed by pain
I can’t see You anymore.
I can’t see the Good, Good Father.
I just see shock and disbelief.
I want to trust You, but it’s hard
When I’m drowning in my grief.
I believe you really love me,
But I just don’t understand
How Your sovereign will allowed this
To pass right through Your hand.
You could have stopped this if You wanted to.
You have that power and control,
But for some yet unknown reason,
You allowed this pain to pierce my soul.
That knowledge almost angers me.
I feel the rebellion well within
And fight that bitter, stubborn spirit
That will lead my heart toward sin.
Instead, I turn my heart to Jesus
And cling to what I know.
Secure in my salvation,
I should use this time to grow.
For you know when I am hurting,
And I feel that all is lost,
I shed my stubborn independence
And fall, broken, at the cross.
I will trust my Good, Good Father
To complete His work in me.
For, God, you know things I don’t know
And see things I can’t see.
So I’ll stop asking you for knowledge, Lord,
That’s too heavy for me to hold
And trust You when life makes no sense,
To take my heart to shape and mold.
In the journey through this process,
My roots of faith grow deep and strong
When cries of pain are transformed to
A symphony of song.
-Bobbie Perkins c. 2023
