Christian Study - Christian Suffering

Christian Suffering

Alas, suffering is ever with us. There is no house it has not invaded, no home that is exempt from it and no life that is untouched by it. "The whole creation groaneth in travail" (Rom. 8:22), and this is true not merely in the teeming wards of great hospitals. "Man is born to trouble as sparks fly' upward.) Suffering is everywhere; and that person who is fortunate enough to have little of it in his own personal life is yet scarred and seared by it in the ravishing of loved ones.

I. Suffering is of many kinds:

A. There is retributive suffering in which one's sins return, in a sense, upon his own head. Lost health and suffering due to Godless living is an example and the savage vengeance of evil men against real or fancied wrongs perpetrated upon them is another. Adoni-Bezek cut off the thumbs and great toes of seventy kings who groveled for food beneath his table, and then it happened to him. He said, "As I have done, so God hath requited me" (Judg.1:6). Many a sufferer can say the same thing.

B. There is educative suffering called chastening (Heb.

12 :5, which is allowed of God, or even on occasion sent by God, having as its purpose (1) the correction of faults, (2) the strengthening of faith and (3) the promotion of the soul's eternal welfare. The reaction to this type of suffering (and in a sense to all suffering) is prescribed as follows: (1) the child of God must not despise it; (2) he should submit to it; (3) he must not faint; and (4) he should attempt in every way to reap the benefit God intended by it. For a full discussion of "Chastening," see CH, P· 318.

C. There is redemptive, or vicarious, suffering. Of this kind were the sorrows of the Master and his agony upon Calvary. There is in this type of suffering the willing and voluntary bearing of suffering for the sake of others and such sufferings were the glory of our Lord. But men m>metimes suffer similarly, though not in the degree that Jesus suffered, for the benefit of others. Many parents have endured drudgery and poverty to give their children an education. Any mother with a sick child has suffered a long and sleepless night of patient waiting and suffering for the child's benefit.

D. There is suffering that appears to have no rational basis whatever. The innocent, the pure and the godly also suffer; and the pattern of it seems to-follow no-rationale whatever. 'Many a devout soul has shared some of the bitterest sufferings of life, agonies from which there was no appeal possible; and such souls have, with the Savior on the cross, cried out in agony, "My God, my God, why?" Feeble and imperfect must be any person's wrestling with so deep a question, but we are driven to seek some kind of answer.

II. What are the reasons for suffering

A. Our own naive simplicity is one cause of it. When rules of health, physical laws, the nature of human beings and all of the dictates of common sense are violated with impunity, suffering may, and frequently does, follow as a result. In short, much human sorrow and suffering are caused from ordinary stupidity. The woman who marries "the son of Ahab" is a prime example of this. She did not have to do it, but in spite of father's advice and mother's tears she married the town's profligate!

B. The activity of Satan is another cause. Man would do well to look here for the true cause of all human suffering, not merely in the sense of his having introduced and

instigated sin into the human race, but also in the sense of being an ever-active agent at the present time in promoting sin and rebellion against the Laws of God. This brings suffering: upon all. The innocent suffer as the result of actions of the guilty as when a drunken driver plunges over a cliff with five young people in his car. The world we live in makes no sense at 'all unless there is Satan in it, organizing its evil, discouraging its saints, opposing the truth and making every conceivable effort to accomplish the total ruin of humanity. May every man take the measure of his foe!

C. The sins of others cause suffering in the innocent. The physician under the influence of drugs, the magistrate who takes a bribe, the careless driver, the libertine, the scoffer, the thoughtless and irreligious--all of these and countless others commit sins that result in the sufferings of others.

D. Then there are accidental occurrences which however cautiously guarded against may yet happen, such as an airplane accident for which no cause can be assigned; and then, suffering. Natural laws are violated inadvertently, or because they are not known and recognized, resulting in suffering which to all outward appearances is totally capricious.

III. What to do about suffering.

A. We should not blame God with it, nor lose our faith, nor complain as if same unmoral thing had happened. It is the grand hallmark of all life on earth At the same time, we should not take a stoical attitude of bravado, as in Henley's "I am the captain of my soul." After all, man does pretty well if he rates being a "cabin boy" on the ship of life and certainly is utterly incapable of being either the captain of his soul or the master of his fate.

B. On the positive side, one should strive earnestly to accept suffering as Paul was admonished to accept the thorn in the flesh. That there are rich spiritual rewards to be reaped from suffering is a fact well known to all; and when called to, suffering, men should be aware of this and turn all the energies of life toward their appropriation. Some of the great literature, so, of life's most beautiful songs, and some of its most noble achievements have come as a result of suffering that closed some gates and shut the achiever up to a more restricted course, or opened the eyes of the sufferer's understanding to beauties which he might otherwise never have seen.

C. Most of all, it should be accepted in faith. There may not be an answer on this earth or in this lifetime. John the Baptist heard only the grating of the prison door as the soldiers of Herod came to lead him to the block, and Herod heard only the music and dancing; but the answer to such an injustice did not come in this life. But surely the heart of faith can well believe that for him, of whom the Master said, "None is greater," there is reserved some ,,,compensatory reward on the eternal shore. May all men, even in tears, accept whatever of life's sorrows they must, assured that there is a city "where there are no tears or pain."

D. Finally, let men, when they suffer, remember the sufferings of the Lord. He suffered for us; and, for him, there were no sedatives, no medicines, no relief. Contemplating the epic sorrows of the Christ is sufficient to cause nearly any sufferer to see that his sufferings are as nothing compared with the sufferings of Jesus. And while we are about it, may we be also grateful for the ministration of physicians, nurses, hospitals and friends who can, and do, do so much to relieve the agony and the pain, and to brace the faithful heart against the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune.

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