Our Unbiblical Thinking About Suffering
Much of our thinking about suffering is unbiblical.
We tend to think that spiritual maturity somehow inoculates us against the pain of suffering. We falsely imagine that the more spiritually mature we are, the less emotional pain we will experience when we suffer.
The Apostle Paul Would Like to Have a Word with Us
There are few human beings who we would consider more spiritually mature than Paul. Yet Paul did not glide through suffering on some super spiritual cloud of emotional invulnerability or invincibility.
Consider just a few of Paul’s candid descriptions of his personal, emotional, experiential responses to suffering.
- Paul felt his suffering was far beyond his ability to endure (2 Corinthians 1:8).
- Paul responded to his suffering by despairing of life itself (2 Corinthians 1:8).
- Paul’s inner response to his external suffering was so traumatic that he felt that he had received the sentence of death (2 Corinthians 1:9).
- Paul felt hard pressed on every side (2 Corinthians 4:8).
- Paul was confused and perplexed in the midst of his suffering (2 Corinthians 4:8).
- Paul repeatedly desperately pleaded with the Lord to take away his suffering (2 Corinthians 12:8).
- Paul experienced intense personal, spiritual weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Spiritually mature Christians respond to suffering with intense feelings, with emotional pain, with candor, and with lament.
Jesus Would Like to Have a Word with Us
In case Paul is not enough of an example of emotional turmoil in the midst of suffering, consider Jesus. As He endured His Gethsemane soul suffering:
- Jesus’s soul was sorrowful and troubled (Matthew 26:37; John 12:27).
- Jesus was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death (Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:34).
- Jesus was deeply distressed and troubled (Mark 14:33).
- Jesus was in anguish (Luke 22:44).
- Jesus’s sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22:44).
Paul’s Traumatic Suffering
I’ve been continuing my Genesis-to-Revelation study of suffering. Currently, I’m examining Acts.
Paul suffered traumatically in Acts. Consider some samplers:
- At the very beginning of his Christian life, Jesus showed Paul how much he must suffer for Christ (Acts 9:15-16). The Holy Spirit warned Paul that prison and hardship were his lot in life (Acts 20:23-24). Imagine peering into your future and knowing the trauma coming your way…
- The Jews conspired to kill Paul, day and night keeping watch into order to murder him (Acts 9:23-30). Imagine knowing your enemies were continually plotting to kill you…
- Jealous people verbally abused Paul (Acts 13:45).
- Religious people poisoned the minds of others against Paul (Acts 14:2).
- Religious leaders physically abused Paul (Acts 14:4-7).
- Paul was stoned and left for dead (Acts 14:9-20).
- Paul was humiliated, stripped, beaten with rods, severely flogged, thrown into prison, and fastened in the stocks (Acts 16:19-25).
- Paul was beaten publicly without a trial and thrown into prison (Acts 16:37).
- Paul experienced spiritual abuse (Acts 18:5-6).
- People united together to attack Paul (Acts 18:12-13).
- People publicly maligned Paul (Acts 19:9).
- Paul was seized, dragged from the temple, crowds were trying to kill him, a violent mob beat him, he was bound with chains (Acts 21:27-36).
- People mocked and despised Paul, saying, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”
- Over forty men formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul (Acts 23:12-15). Imagine conspiratorial enemies bound together with an oath to kill you.
How Do Spiritually Mature People Survive Traumatic Suffering?
We know what we don’t do. We don’t fake it. We don’t pretend. We don’t deny our emotions. We don’t stuff our feelings.
Paul teaches us a few things that spiritually mature people do when they face traumatic suffering.
- We turn to the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). We turn to our sympathetic High Priest, Jesus, who is the Man of Sorrows who knows our suffering (Hebrews 4:14-16).
- We refuse to try to handle life on our own. We tell others about our sorrows. Paul did not want the brothers and sister sin Corinth to be uninformed about the troubles he was experiencing. (2 Corinthians 1:8).
- When we find ourselves in a casket; we cling to resurrection hope. We refuse to rely upon ourselves, instead relying upon the God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:9).
- We admit our weakness and cling to Christ, whose power is made perfect in weakness. We trust in Christ, whose grace is sufficient for us (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
I greatly appreciate reading this article. I’ve been suffering with death of my father 88 yrs who was walking with Jesus. Now my 89 yrs old mother who’s cancer spreading from breast, lung, bone, now brain who’s not saved, but have religion. She’s bitter, angry, curses, hateful towards my sister who’s caring 24/7 for her. Breaks my heart to see my mother pride keep her from humble herself and ask God for forgiveness of her sins. Also, my 30 year old son is alienated my two grandchildren away from me because of my faith and walk with Jesus. He doesn’t want them influence with me talking with them about Jesus or taking them to church with me anymore. He says I’m being brainwashed by my church. He’s focus is Family, education and sports. He’ll let his kids make their own decision about their faith in what they believe. It breaks my heart that my son knows I love him and my grandchildren. This article encouraged me to know Jesus knows what I’m and my love ones are going through. There is so much brokenness, evil and pain in our world today. Only God can heal us! These scriptures will help me to meditate on God’s Words alone whenever I feel alone in my battles or if I have doubts God is working out everything for His good. My HOPE is in Him! I trust Him with my life because I belong to God. He told us we will suffer in this world, for His name sake. Being a follower of christ brings division even in our own families. Jesus came to earth to do just that. I’ve shared this article with my church Caregroup, family, and friends. Thank you for caring about those who are suffering. Reminded us how to suffer well until Jesus returns or call us home.
Thank you, Bob, for this article. I’ve been through some deep waters physically for the last year and a half, and lost both my parents this last year as well. I’ve tried to be transparent in my suffering with my church ladies as I’ve lost walking function, have lots of pain, went thru four horrendous surgeries, and was on medications that pretty much wiped my recent memory. On top of all that, the church isn’t great at ministering on any kind of consistent basis to people with chronic conditions of any kind, so there was isolation and loneliness as I had to miss about 6 months of church, which added exponentially to our suffering.
But what I have found in all that neglect and isolation is a deeper relationship with the Lord – He truly is the God of all comfort; He’s been my good shepherd who has not once left me or neglected me, and has been my Immanuel who has tenderly cared unfailingly for both my husband and me – because he has suffered much as well through all this. The Lord has been lovingly growing my dependence on his strength rather than depending on my own, and though I was unable to “do” anything for him for a year, He “did” for me exactly what I needed – He loved me.
I think the local church is not very well equipped to love people who suffer, and my husband and I hope by God’s grace to help our local body do that better. I have found that theology we say we’d die for is only as good as it lives itself out in our lives – talk is cheap. So we can hash and rehash our “beliefs” and “doctrines”, but if we’re not putting those beliefs into the hard work of loving others faithfully, then James would say our faith is useless.
I agree that most Christians don’t know how to emote biblically, so many turn to medications or therapy or even to “biblical counseling” that aims to “fix” us – rather than getting down into the suffering pit with one another and weeping with those who weep, because that’s inconvenient and uncomfortable. And many in our church didn’t know what to do with my saying I was grieving over things lost, or that I was struggling with anxiety or fear or loneliness, or having a hard time seeing Jesus in the midst of my dark night.
We as Christians absolutely need to learn to live out a robust theology of suffering like Christ and Paul – to be cast down but not destroyed, perplexed but not despairing; persecuted but not forsaken – as we live with daily dying to self, knowing resurrection is ahead, and that resurrection power is available here and now to live in bodies and a world riddled by sin in a way that pleases the Lord, though the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit – which includes sorrowing and weeping and lamenting in a biblical way.
Thank you for this. I’m my life I have had a very low tolerance for emotional pain, and it has kept me from growing. Where do we go with our pain? Thank you for pointing us to our sympathetic high priest.
Hello Bob,
I have thoroughly enjoyed and learned from the many resources you have provided on suffering. I have a question that you may have already addressed, so the answer may only require a reference.
My question is: What does healing look like for a suffering saint?
It may be a physical cure for physical suffering, but what about soul suffering?
Has that been a part of your recent studies? Will it be a study for the future?
I understand that heaven is one aspect for the future, but what about for life here and now in this painful world?
I would appreciate any references or books you have written that address this aspect of our suffering. Thank you for your ministry.
Thanks, Brian. I address and answer your question in detail in God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: https://rpmministries.org/bookstore/gods-healing-for-lifes-losses-how-to-find-hope-when-youre-hurting/