Seven Right Responses to Suffering

 

Suffering 24

Note: I am offering a ten hour Zoom class on hermeneutics on Monday nights from March 20 to April 17. It will run from 7 PM to 9 PM Central Time. It is designed for anyone who teaches in a volunteer capacity in a local church. There is no charge for the class. You will receive a 50 page syllabus and a 90 page assigned reading course. Because everything for the class functions via email I do need you to register with your email address if you are interested, even if I already have that email for some other reason. Any questions, feel free to let me know.  

          Suffering is only occasionally self-caused. More often, it is caused by someone else and impacts you. We likened this to how a rowboat must respond to the waves coming from a large rock hurled into the pond from shore. Last week, we examined nine ways not to respond. Today, we are going to look at seven ways we should respond. Suffering is coming; here is how you ought to respond.

Prayer

          Prayer, as John R. Rice famously said, is asking. Prayer is also often just enjoying the Lord’s company. Prayer ought to be praise, much more than it is. But in addition to these, prayer is taking the grief of your heart and pouring it out to the Lord. Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee (Psalm 55.22). I poured out my complain before him: I shewed before him my trouble (Psalm 142.2).

          Venting to your friends brings a feeling of catharsis, and the temporary emotional support of sympathy. Prayer takes that a step farther by doing all of that plus the addition of strength. Jesus did it. Job did it. Joseph did it. Moses did it. David did it. Jeremiah did it. Habakkuk did it. And you and I ought to do it.

          The waves are advancing rapidly toward your fragile craft. What should you do?

          Pray.

Trust 

          I just urged you to pray in response to suffering, but sometimes you cannot pray. In my experience this happens when I feel like God is the one responsible for my pain. Other times, this occurs when I feel as if I have already taken this burden to Him a million times; what is to be gained by voicing my grief again? On rare occasions, I have not been able to summon any words at all; all I can do is kneel there, weeping brokenly. I have learned, though, that even in such times I can still trust Him. Trust in him at all times; ye people, Pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah (Psalm 62.8).

          In such times, this is what I tell God. “I’m mad at you, though I know I have no right to be. I do not understand at all what you are doing. I am weary with bringing this to you again. But underneath all the ferment of my feelings I trust You. I have to; I have nowhere else to go.”

          As an old saint said, when you cannot trace His hand you can trust His promises. He is too good to be unkind and too wise to make mistakes. Trust in that goodness. Trust in His reasons, that He is working all of this to good purpose. And trust His timing. He is never late.

Brokenness 

          Some of you reading me today will not understand this, but the psalmist would. I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart (Psalm 38.8). Thou hast sore broken us (Psalm 44.19). The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise (Psalm 51.17).

          One of the most difficult messages I have ever given was to a local pastor’s fellowship on the text, And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken (Matthew 21.44). Brokenness, however, is not something only pastor’s experience; it is something saints experience.

          In the original language, broken in the above text means shattered. It is to be crushed, to be heartbroken, to be in despair, to be ground into the dust.

          In the main Bible I used during my college days you will find this poem in the front flyleaf:

A crystal mirror, I;

Fate flung me, how prosaic, in the dust.

Now shattered here I lie.

Dear God, please help me try

To be a rare mosaic, in the dust.

          C. H. Spurgeon said something similar in his own inimitable way.

Oh, what a mercy it would be if some of you were broken all to pieces! There are many flowers that will never yield their perfume till they are bruised. Even the generous grape lets not its juice flow forth till it is trodden under foot of men. Breaking and bruising are fit treatment for the nature of men, especially for the new nature. When God has put sweetness into our hearts, it is then that breaking develops the sweetness. Oh, to worship God in spirit and in truth! One has well said, “No one ever worshipped God with his whole heart unless he worshipped him with a broken heart.”

          Let him break you. Do not fight Him. From the shattered remains He will shine forth all the brighter.

Joy 

          I have quoted the psalmist often in this series. If anyone in the Bible besides Jesus understood suffering it was him. Yet that same psalmist understood joy. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous: For praise is comely for the upright (Psalm 33.1).

          So did Isaiah. As an old man, enduring the awful reign of Judah’s worst king, the murderous Manasseh, he wrote, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels (Isaiah 61.10).

          So did Habakkuk. After enunciating in excruciating detail all that his country would endure at the hands of a righteously indignant God he said, Although the fig tree shall not blossom, Neither shall fruit be in the vines; The labour of the olive shall fail, And the fields shall yield no meat; The flock shall be cut off from the fold, And there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation (Habakkuk 3.17-18).

          So did Paul. Shivering in the bowels of a Roman prison, probably shackled to rotating teams of guards, looking death square in the eye, he penned these immortal words: Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice (Philippians 4.4).

          Beloved, when everything around you is awful and everything inside of you is broken, He is still God. His attributes are unchanged and His Word is still true. The weeping prophet, well named, wrote, Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise (Jeremiah 17.14). When you cannot rejoice in a single thing about your life, you can still rejoice in Him.

Peace

          During the coronavirus pandemic, I wrote a lengthy blog series about peace. I will not here reiterate it, but I do want to mention it. When your boat is rocking up and down as the waves of suffering threaten to swamp your craft, ask Him for His peace.

Absorb

          About twenty-five years ago, a major safety innovation began to be designed into cars for the first time – crumple zones. The hood and the trunk were purposely engineered to fold up, accordion style, in order to absorb as much force as possible from an accident. In the years since, uncounted lives have been spared or spared from serious harm.

          Many of the people who cause suffering in others do so because they endured suffering themselves. Most abusers were themselves abused when they were younger. Broken people often cut. Hurting people often hurt. Mangled people often mangle. Broken people often break others.

          Do not be like those people. When damage comes into your life, absorb it. Do not pass it on to those around you.

          Perhaps the best biblical example of this is David. Saul hurled spears at him, literally, and hunted him down like a dog. Yet when David became king he refused to become an abusive, authoritarian despot like Saul became. He absorbed what Saul threw at him. In the process, he protected his family and his kingdom in ways they never even grasped let alone understood.

          It will cost you more than you want to pay to absorb suffering, and the better you do so the less the people around you will even notice. Absorb anyway.

Radiate

          The Mojave Desert is beautiful, especially at sunrise or sunset. During the heat of the day it is brutal, but the bookends of that brutality are breathtaking. As the sun sets, and the desert plunges into blackness the air temperature swiftly plummets. Yet the sand for quite some time still retains the warmth of the sun, and silently radiates that heat back out.

          Paul, in telling the Corinthians about God, said, Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God (I Corinthians 1.4). Absorb the pain, yes. But radiate outward to all within your embrace the faith, peace, comfort, and joy you have found in the Lord.

          The sweetest Christians I know are the ones who have suffered the most, in whom the Lord has plowed His deepest furrows. But the fruit that has grown in their life as a result is marvelous, and everyone around them shares in its blessing. Our Saviour, with His life leaking from His battered body, suffering for your sin and mine, ministered to those around Him on that cross.

          Be like Jesus, Christian, be like Jesus.