Each Sunday during the service, we ask if anyone has prayer requests. Many of you lift up family, friends, and neighbors who are suffering. These prayers are for other people, seldom to any of us admit to our own suffering. But when we’re honest, we must admit we suffer too. We suffer in different ways and at different times and to different extents, but suffering is part of what it means to be human. As it says in Acts 14: “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
For millennia, people have asked: “If God is good, and God is omnipotent, why does he allow suffering?” Many different answers have been proposed, but I believe God will allow (but not cause) suffering at times because it is actually good for us.
Sometimes suffering may be a form of discipline. When one of God’s beloved children wanders away, He may use suffering to bring them back.
Suffering equips Christians to understand and stand beside others who suffer, offering the comfort that we have received from God.
Suffering reminds us that this world has fallen and keeps our eyes pointed on the eternal kingdom. Amid our suffering, we cling to God. Paul addresses this in his second letter to the Corinthians when he says, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9). We will go through times of suffering in this world, but as Paul says above, we are not crushed, not forsaken, not destroyed. God remains by our side to lift us up and promise a future free from pain.
Suffering can help us keep our priorities straight. Those who are rich find it much more difficult to focus on heaven than for those who are impoverished and persecuted. When life is comfortable, we lack motivation to look beyond our earthly existence towards eternity.
Many times, Christians suffer for the same reason Jesus did. Our message to the world is an uncompromising truth that Jesus is the only way to God. Our society does not want to hear this and lashes out in anger.
The question then becomes how we should respond to suffering when it comes. First, we are called to be thankful in all circumstances. Amid suffering is the perfect time to exercise this as we pray to God and give thanks that he is there with us, lovingly supporting us in our darkest times. Then we put our suffering to use sharing this comfort with others.
The church, rather than a gathering of the perfect, is a refuge for the suffering. When a member is hurting, the church applies the bandages; when a member is down, the church encourages; when a member is in need, the church comes alongside to help. Once we have experienced and survived our own trials, we have personal experience of both the suffering itself and of God’s comforting and sustaining power. This equips us for ministering to others.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:17–18, “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” We go to great lengths to avoid suffering, but we should look upon the afflictions that exist in this world and know that they are but temporary conditions. God allows this suffering in our lives for the sake of our eternal joy and glory.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Art Blegin
First Presbyterian Church of Kewanee
Elmira United Presbyterian Church
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Kewanee Voice.
