A godly attitude towards trials:
patience in suffering
AJM, Holy
Trinity, March 7th 2004, evening service.
Introduction
Good
evening.
When I
was little my friends and I would play the game of asking one another, ‘if you
had one wish, what would it be?’ My answer was always the same: ‘to be happy’.
I had no idea of what that happiness would actually look like in practice as I
grew older, but I knew that it was what I wanted.
My
friends were more pragmatic; they would name specific things that they thought
would make them happy. But one way or
another, it was a desire we all shared; we all wanted to be happy.
We
weren’t the only ones. For centuries researchers have poured their time and
energy into the task of deciding what it is that makes people happy. One of the
most comprehensive surveys was undertaken in the 1st century BC by a
philosopher called Varro. He read all the standard works on the subject, and
concluded that there were 288 different approaches to the question of human
happiness. The search continues today. Four months ago the Royal Society in
I
think it’s inbuilt in human nature, this desire to be happy. We see it
everywhere. We live in a world which endlessly seeks after happiness. We
receive a constant stream of messages about where it is to be found, which
range from the trivial – in this fragrance, this car – to the unreachable – in
fame, in wealth. But the reality is rather different. We find both on the
telly. The ads and the films encourage us to pursue a dream of glamour, success
and fulfilment. But the soap operas portray a different world, a more real
world of shattered relationships and dead end lives. There is, in other words,
a massive clash between what we set out to get and what life brings us in
practice. We want happiness, but often what we get is suffering. Reality for
most people in most places is a complicated life which fails to match up to our
dreams.
Snapshots from the Bible
So what does the Bible have to say about happiness and suffering? Well, it makes for surprising
reading.
Think of Jesus and the beatitudes. Jesus used the word blessed, which
was just the normal word for happy at the time. Happy are you, then, he said,
when… well, when things go wrong – that’s basically what he said. Happy are the
poor, the grief-stricken, the dispossessed, the oppressed, the persecuted; for
theirs shall be the kingdom of heaven.
Or
think of the readings we heard earlier.
Consider it
pure joy when you meet trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of
your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you
may be mature and complete, not lacking anything, said James (James 1.2-4)
You have no food, no money, no shelter? Rejoice in the Lord, says
Habakkuk. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the
vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there
are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the
Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. (Habakkuk 3.17-18)
The
same message is echoed throughout the Bible:
Do not be
surprised at the painful trial that you are suffering, as though something strange
were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ,
so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4.12-13)
We rejoice in
our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;
perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us,
because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he
has given us. (Romans
5.3-5)
There are lots of passages like these. They all seem to carry one
message, and it is a message which runs completely counter to that which we
tend to believe. We believe that suffering and happiness are opposites. Either
you suffer, or you’re happy. But these guys don’t believe that. These
guys believe that suffering and happiness are linked. Suffering is not the
opposite of happiness. Suffering is what produces happiness. It’s a
catalyst, not a disaster. Let’s pray.
Pictures of growth
I’d like to start by throwing some pictures at you, pictures which remind us that suffering and
happiness are linked. They are all biblical pictures:
A woman giving
birth.
I know there’s all this
natural birth and aromatherapy sort of stuff around, but let me tell you that
the reality is that giving birth is messy, undignified and excruciatingly
painful. I’ve done it twice, once with twins. It has been one of the greatest sources
of happiness in my life. (John 16.20-21)
An athlete
pushing through the pain barrier to victory
I read an astonishing book
by a cyclist called Lance Armstrong. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer,
underwent months of chemotherapy that left him throwing up and prostrate on the
floor for days at a time, and went on to win the Tour de France. He said in the
book that it was the cancer that made him tough enough and determined enough to
do it, the cancer that made him who he became. Cancer, he said, was the best
thing that had ever happened to him. (2 Timothy 2.3-6; 1 Corinthians 9.24-27)
An artist
creating a work of art
One of the greatest works of
art ever is the painting of the Sistine chapel ceiling, by Michelangelo. It took
him 4 years, and he painted the story of the Creation. But he didn’t enjoy
doing it. He complained he wasn’t a painter, he was a sculptor, and that it was
an awful job, standing on scaffolding with a crick in his neck, painting with
his arm above his head, damaging his eyesight and his back. He only did it
because the Pope gave him no choice – and not much thanks, either, even
threatening to have him thrown off the scaffolding at one point if he didn’t
speed up. (1 Kings 6)
Putting suffering to work
So let’s explore the idea that suffering, far from being something we
should avoid at all costs, far from being a disaster, a tragedy, or an
injustice, is actually something we can welcome, just as the biblical writers
said we should.
I often pray for people who are suffering. As I have prayed for them, I
have come to one unshakeable conviction. The conviction is this: that the
correct response to pain is to greet it, acknowledge it and set it to work.
Pain is not a disaster. Pain is not something to be wished away. Pain is the
greatest agent of growth that there is. When we are in pain, we usually want
only one thing: that the pain should be removed. But I have learnt that God is
more ambitious than that. I have learnt that it is through pain that we find
God, through pain that we grow, through pain that we discover ourselves,
through pain that we become strong. Pain is like a tunnel. It is frightening to
go through. It is a place of darkness, of loneliness, of confusion. But it is
only on the other side of the tunnel that we will find the light and peace
which is ours in Christ. You can’t go round a tunnel, you have to go through
it.
I can’t tell you other people’s stories. But I can tell you my own. I
set out wanting happiness. At first I thought I’d found it. But then I found
myself living through hell, in waves which seemed to come again as soon as they
went. At 25 I became a stepmother to 3 teenagers whose mother had died and who
found themselves lumbered with me instead. I can tell you that being a stepmother
is not good for the self-esteem; step parents get a bad press, but there’s
another side to the story, and it hurts. After that I spent 3 years in a church
which was trying to boot us out; we used to get hate mail and Roger didn’t
sleep for weeks at a time. A few years after that he got hit by a lorry and
spent months off work; for weeks I didn’t even know he’d live, and by this time
we had 3 young children of our own. I can tell you, I began to think this
wasn’t a life, it was a boxing ring. I’d survived a left hook, got back up
after the right hook which followed it, and now here was another left hook! I
was left just reeling, just saying to God, could you please explain to me what
the heck is going on here, because whatever it is, it doesn’t seem quite fair?
Many of you know all these things, and some of you stood with me
through them. But maybe what you don’t know is this. If I could have my life
again I’d keep them all. Those have been the times I’ve got to know God. Those
have been the times I’ve grown up. Those have been the times I’ve learnt that
things can go badly wrong and you can get stronger and stronger. Through those
things I have come to a place where I know as I never knew before that God
loves me and he is with me. Pain is the greatest catalyst for growth that there
is. Pain is like fire. It can burn or it can refine. And which it does is up to
us.
I read a book recently by Philip Yancey, called Reaching for the invisible God. Yancey remarks on this. Christians
in affluent countries, when they are suffering, tend to pray the same way. They
pray, ‘Lord, take this trial away from us!’ Do you identify with that? That’s
how I’ve prayed. That’s how lots of people I’ve prayed with have wanted to
approach their suffering. But prisoners, persecuted Christians and some in very
poor countries, the ones whose suffering really is the greatest, they don’t
pray that. They pray, ‘Lord, give us the strength to bear this trial’. They
have learnt to seek not comfort but God – and there is a difference. If you
measure happiness by laughter, then rural
Many of the great spiritual writers tell us that suffering works in
this way. There is more to healing than
curing, says bishop Michael Mitton, after years in the healing ministry. Recognition of suffering is the path to
liberation, says Henri Nouwen, a Catholic spiritual writer. There are many blessings we will never
receive until we are willing to pray the price of pain, for the path of
suffering is the only way to reach them, says J R Miller in the spiritual
classic Streams in the desert. Why?
Because suffering forces us out of ourselves and our circumstances, forces us
to look over the parapet of the immediate and to seek God. And when we seek
God, we tend to find him.
So: Consider it pure joy when you
meet trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops
perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and
complete, not lacking anything. I
actually believe that. I actually know it to be true. Not because I’m supposed
to be spiritual and praise the Lord as I watch my life fall apart; but because
I have learnt that suffering has turned me from a person I didn’t want to be
into one that I do want to be. It doesn’t mean I enjoy it at the time. But it does
mean I am no longer afraid of it.
The suffering of Jesus
If you look up all the Bible verses about suffering you find that most
of them refer not to the suffering that we experience, but to that which Jesus
experienced. And they link the two. They link them in a number of ways:
Firstly, Jesus was announced by the prophets as ‘a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering’ centuries before he
was even born. (Isaiah 53.3). Jesus was born into this world precisely because
it is a world of suffering and pain, and his task was to suffer for its
suffering, to struggle against the forces of evil, and to engage with the messy
stuff of human relationships. My God, my
God, why have you abandoned me? he cried from the cross. If even Jesus
could cry that, it’s not surprising that we cry it too when we are suffering.
But Jesus went through suffering, and he came out the other side. In so doing
he opened up a path for us to follow. It’s a path that goes through a tunnel,
to be sure; but because he’s been through it before us we may be sure that
there is light on the other side. Listen to Paul: ‘we are God’s children. Now if we are his children, then we are heirs –
heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ - and we share in his sufferings in order
that we may also share in his glory. (Romans 8.17). And to Peter: ‘to this you were called, because Christ
suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps’.
A Christian is one who walks in the path of Christ, who follows The Way, as
the disciples called it. His path went through pain; so will ours.
Secondly, the experience of suffering did something for Jesus. The
writer to the Hebrews says that through his suffering two things happened to
Jesus. First, he learned obedience. Hebrews 5.8, although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered’. And
second, he became perfect. Hebrews 2.10: in
bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God.. should make the author
of their salvation perfect through suffering. If God taught Jesus through suffering,
why should we expect anything different for ourselves? Listen to this:
Endure
hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not
disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes
discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we
have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. ..
Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God
disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline
seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a
harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews
12)
A contented child is a child who has learnt not to get what he wants,
to control his desires and emotions. I used to spank my children; when they
grew a little older I would send them to their rooms; now I deprive them of
their pocketmoney. The result? They are happy and popular kids.
And then thirdly, the experience of suffering enables us to do the work
of Jesus. Imagine if every Christian were exempt from suffering. Suppose it
were the case that by becoming a Christian, we acquired a special immunity to
the effects of sin and suffering in the world. Suppose we only had to call upon
Christ, and pain would go out the window. What would happen, do you think, when
we tried to engage with those around us who are caught up in the suffering of
the world, the suffering which is our common condition as human beings, and who
do not yet know Christ? Would we be effective counsellors? With what words
would we comfort them? With what insights would we understand them? You can’t
be led out of a desert by someone who’s never been there. It is precisely our willingness to engage with suffering, to get
stuck into painful relationships, to walk through painful situations, to
recognise the pain which is our common lot, which makes us able to reach out to
others with the love of God. We must be willing to experience pain, and to see
it as part of what it means to be human. We must be willing to help others
through the same process. It is an illusion to think that we may escape pain,
and it is an illusion to think that we may spare others from pain. Jesus had to
go through the tunnel. We have to go through the tunnel. And the light is on
the other side.
What to do when we are suffering
Well, I suppose at this point I’d better ask the big question. You are
suffering. You are talking to someone who is suffering. What do you do? As I’ve
thought about it, I think there are four things.
1.
You ask the question: how does God see this situation?
As I’ve looked back on my own experience, and as I’ve prayed with other
people, I have found that often the greatest suffering is caused not by what is
happening but by the way we think about what is happening.
Let me give you some examples. Every day we are involved with people.
People at home, people at work. Those people are suffering people, with
unresolved issues in their lives. They may not treat us well. They may offer us
their anger, their criticism, their competitiveness. They may make us feel
guilty, incompetent, rejected. When all these things happen, what do we do?
Well, if you are anything like me, you listen to them. You take on board their
criticism. You feel hurt by their blame. You begin to despair of yourself. And
you suffer. You become depressed. Angry. Bad at your job. Inadequate at home.
I’ve done all this. What should I have done instead? Well, I’ve come to realise
that I should have asked a simple question. What does God think of all this?
How does God see me in this situation? Often I ask people this question about
themselves, and usually they don’t know what the answer is. But it is in the
answer that we find healing. We don’t find that the circumstances change, for
the people will still be the same. But we do find healing. Who am I? Well, I’m
only me, nothing special, they’re right. But God loves me. God does not want me
to be in pain. God is angry on my behalf when I am treated badly. God looks
with sorrow at those who have hurt me. And so should I, instead of hating them
or hating myself. Be transformed by the
renewal of your mind, Paul wrote to the Romans. Did someone abuse you? How
do you feel about that? Guilty? Of no value? How does God feel about it? I can
tell you: he feels furious. I remember once standing in my kitchen lamenting my
inadequacies, licking my wounds, wallowing in resentment and despair. And then suddenly
I saw myself, standing in the dock of a courtroom. God was the judge. My
accusers were pointing fingers at me. His arm went up. Slowly the hammer came
down. It took an eternity. Crash. And then his voice rang out. Not guilty! I
can tell you no person has ever felt
freer or more certain of their right standing with the creator of the universe
than I did at that moment. Because I had suddenly seen the whole situation as
God saw it, not as I had seen it or as those others had seen it. And I was healed;
not just of the immediate pain but of a whole inherited way of looking at
myself. Like going into hospital to be treated for a serious burn and coming
out to find you’ve been cured of heart disease. And to find you can live a
different way, and handle situations which previously were crushing you.
2.
Secondly you ask the question: Is there anything I myself can do to relieve my
pain?
Often there is. There are three routes open to you, one of which will
almost certainly help:
- You can take
responsibility for your situation, and make some clear decisions. Imagine
yourself as Lazarus. Jesus is calling you out of the tomb. You are trying
to come, but you are still bound in your gravecloths. Imagine those
gravecloths as the things which are holding you back from responding to
Jesus’s invitation. What are they? What are the things that bind you? Can
you take any steps to shuffle them off? Are you working too long hours –
can you change your attitude or change your job? Do you have to meet the
expectations of others, or would it be OK just to say no? Are you giving
someone else power over you, the power to define you or confine you? How
would Jesus behave in your situation?
- You can
repent. Sometimes we are the authors of our own pain. Can you put a
relationship right? Can you give up drinking? Can you think about how you
can serve instead of how you can succeed? Can you ask God to cleanse you
from something in your past?
- You can
pray. When James wrote that we are to rejoice in our trials, he didn’t
mean that we should enjoy them or sit passively under them. God may be
able to do something with them, but God doesn’t send us pain just for the
fun of it. This is what he says in chapter 5: are any among you suffering? They should pray. Jesus prayed
when he was suffering, and so should we. Pray for change. Pray for the
people who are causing you suffering. Pray that something would give. Pray
for healing of your emotions. Pray that you would be able to forgive. This
is how Angela Ashwin suggests praying when you are hurting:
If someone has wronged you,
picture the hurt still thrashing around inside you like a spiked wheel. From
each spike fly out sparks of rage and anger, words of self-pity, words of
revenge, words of self-justification. Imagine the spiked wheel gradually
slowing down and stopping. Let your pain become focussed into a clear, single
stab of pain. Face it; sit still with it. Then hold the pain up to Christ on
the cross, in an offering without words. By doing this you give him the whole
package, your wounds and your own failings. It is his pain as well as yours.
There is a silence in the heart of suffering. Stay there in the stillness,
vulnerable and exposed, so that the pain becomes the point where God touches
you most deeply.
3. You
adopt an attitude of dependence on God
It used to be said that the 4th century saint Basil had an
ambidextrous faith, because he welcomed pleasures with the right hand and
afflictions with the left, convinced that both would serve God’s designs for him.
That’s what we must do. God does not bring suffering, but God can work with
suffering. Everything that we are and everything that happens to us, however
ugly, can be used by God. Perhaps it’s like this. Perhaps God is like an artist
who makes use of a fault or an impurity
in the stone he is sculpting or the wood he is carving, so as to produce more
exquisite lines or a more beautiful tone. He works the blemishes and the
damaged parts into the whole. He doesn’t spare us from pain, but he works our
pain into the perfect and individual sculpture that we are becoming – provided
that we trust in him. Did you know that Michelangelo carved his famous statue
of David out of a block of marble so damaged and impure that no other sculptor
would touch it with a bargepole? That’s what God can do for us.
4.
And lastly, you enjoy the results
What are the results of suffering? Well, you get perseverance,
character, hope and love. You learn that you can trust God. You learn that your
wellbeing is not dependent on circumstances. You learn to detach yourself from
the things you used to think you needed, and you become mature and complete,
not lacking in anything. Suffering brings freedom.
Conclusion
So there we are. Let’s end with a poem by Dave Bookless:
there are cracks
in my world i noticed
them one day and now they
are everywhere sinister hairline
cracks that start and finish out
of sight cracks that grow
and gape and laugh at
my certainties my world has
been declared unsafe i have tried
to paper them over paint them out shift the
furniture to hide them - but
they always return - cracks that
hang like question marks in my mind but they have
thrown it open to new horizons drawn back
curtains raised
long-closed shutters one day i
looked and a crack had
become a window step through,
it said, what have you to fear? Do you wish to stay in
your crumbling room? And then i remembered
a childhood dream watching the egg of
some exotic bird oval and
perfect, spotted blue and cream (i wished to hold that egg and keep it on a shelf) but as i watched
it, cracks appeared tiny fissures
spread like zigzag ripples it broke in
two and life struggled to its feet wet and weak
and blinking-at-the-world without those
cracks that egg could hold no more than
rotting stagnant death without its cracks
my world would be a room
without a view cracks may
be uncomfortable disturbing gaps but could it
be I need them? do you
believe in cracks? because i keep
searching for God in the room and find He is
hiding in the cracks
(quoted by Angela Ashwin, below)
Helpful
books
Angela Ashwin - From pain into
prayer: opening up to God when life is hard
L B Cowman - Streams in the Desert
(a daily devotional)
Jane Grayshon - Treasures of
darkness: facing the pain of personal suffering
Henri Nouwen - The Wounded healer:
ministry in contemporary society
WH Vanstone - The Stature of
waiting (about Jesus)
Philip Yancey - Reaching for the
invisible God