UNDERSTANDING SUFFERING

As a teenager, Joni Eareckson Tada loved life. She enjoyed riding horses, loved to swim. One summer in 1967, however, that all changed. While swimming with some friends, Joni dove into a lake not knowing how shallow it really was. She broke her neck, paralyzing her body from the neck down. For the next two years during her rehabilitation Joni struggled. She struggled with life, she struggled with God, and she struggled with her paralysis and wanted to die. One question disturbed Joni more than anything else. If God is supposed to be all loving and all powerful, then how can, what has happened to me, be a demonstration of His love and power?

There are no easy answers to why some people suffer much and others seem to breeze through life. You may be going through a painful situation where life doesn’t seem to make any sense. You can’t seem to reconcile how a loving God could allow this terrible thing to happen to you, let alone see any good coming out of your situation. Paula Rinehart notes in her book “Strong women Soft Hearts, “Pain –emotional pain is a curious thing. It takes place on an invisible level, yet it has the potential to actually shape the real stuff of a person’s future. It can numb and destroy our passion in life, but it can refine and bless as well.”

Pain and suffering are inevitable. Almost everyone experiences at some point in life. Our response to them can either make us a bitter person or a better person. Understanding suffering from a Biblical point of view can actually make us stronger, wiser and more grounded in the Lord and experience healing, freedom and wholeness in our lives.

I. NO EASY ROAD & NO EASY ANSWERS:
Life is not one straight easy road. It takes different twists and unexpected turns. Truly as the song goes we were “never promised a rose garden, along with the sunshine there’s gotta be a little rain some time.” I admit that I am not an expert in explaining suffering; I am grappling to understand the meaning of pain and suffering. Who can understand the grief of first time parents whose baby was still born? How could we explain the freak automobile accidental death of a young man who was full of dreams of future and ministry among the Muslims? What words can possibly comfort godly parents whose teenage daughter is literally dying in front of their eyes? What would you say to a missionary widow whose husband and two children were killed by radicals because of the gospel? Seeing those things happen to people in my context left me with more questions than answers.

While there are no easy answers to human suffering the scriptures does give us some comforting pointers that seem to put all the pain, agony and human suffering in right perspective. In Romans 8:28 we read “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” This scripture is often quoted or rather misquoted and misinterpreted by people who try to help themselves or others when they are suffering. What is it actually saying?

BIBLICAL CONEXT: The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Christians in Rome. In the early chapters Paul dealt with man’s ruined condition and his standing before God as a guilty sinner. No matter whether Jews or gentiles all have sinned against God and therefore became enemies of God. The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life. The only way man can be saved is through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul explained that if anyone is in Christ he becomes a new creation. The old is gone behold everything has become new. Paul used the analogy of child birth to explain how the creation is groaning and suffering and we too groan within ourselves and are eagerly waiting to put on a new and incorruptible body.

On this side of heaven there is no such thing as “perfect smile, health, wealth, and families as media ads often seem to present. There is no completely pain free existence. While Paul was challenging the believers to look forward for better things to come he also consoled those who were physically suffering, and facing challenging situations with these words, reading from NASB, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God” Let me unpack this scripture

II. HOW WELL DO WE KNOW GOD?
Vs 28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good..” Knowledge can come from two sources one is through acquiring information and another one is through experience. For example it is one thing for a young woman who has never given birth to children to say “I know child bearing is painful” but it is quite another thing for a woman who has given birth to children to say “I know that child bearing is painful”. One intellectually knows but the other experienced it.

In Greek language two words were used to describe knowing. One describes “experientially or intuitively knowing” and the other “intellectually knowing.” Here Paul employed the former word to stress the fact that he did not know God merely intellectually by going to a Jewish seminary but he experienced God personally.

When we understand what Paul went through then we will have better appreciation for this verse. Just to give you a glimpse into Paul’s suffering: “he was beaten with rods in public and imprisoned without trial (injustice), (Acts 16:22), five times he received what was called the 39 lashes, three times was beaten with rods, once stoned, three times shipwrecked, constantly on the move (no permanent place to live), faced dangers from rivers, robbers, from fellow Jews, Gentiles, in the wilderness, and from the false prophets. He went without water, food and sleep many days. He was exposed to cold on the sea. These were all the external hardships. If that was not enough he was burdened with a daily pressure of concern for all the churches that he planted.

Talk about hardship! When Paul says we know that God causes all things to work together for good it is not a mere intellectual concoction but an experiential conviction. Paul out of his own painful experiences knew very well that God causes all things to work together for good (the benefit or advantage). How well do you know God? Do you know him only intellectually? Or do you know Him experientially too?

III. THE BIBLICAL BASIS OF SUFFERING:
Throughout the Bible and in Church history great men and women of God who have gone through hardships and suffering can say without a blink of an eye that indeed God causes all things work together for good. In James 1:17 “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.” The scripture here implies that all good and perfect gifts we receive are coming from our heavenly father. But how about the heart ache, pain, suffering, sickness, death, broken relationships, do they also come from God? Who is responsible for the evil in the world?

The Bible doesn’t give us any clear indication that God causes bad things to happen to people, but in his sovereign way he can certainly allow them to happen. For example Job lost all his property, children, and health all at once, inspite of all that Job did not curse God instead he worshiped Him. Job’s wife advised him to curse God and die, but Job refused to listen to her instead he said “shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity? While Job was still going through excruciating suffering this was what he said: in Job 19:25- 27, “I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed yet in my flesh I will see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes I and not another. How my heart yearns within me.”

Job is a clear example for us to know how to respond to adversity. When I received the news of my mother’s death many years ago, I said to the Lord, God I am not upset with you. I often heard similar responses from Christians when they lost their loved ones.

My wife and I vividly remember the horrifying news of the gruesome killing of Graham Stains an Australian missionary in Eastern India who was burned to death together with his two young sons in 1999 by Hindu extremists. This is what his widowed wife Gladys Stain said in her recent visit to India, “It has been ten years since the gruesome incident during these ten years, there have been times of sadness, I feel sad that I do not have my husband to support me, to guard me, and I would never see my sons graduating but these are just momentary emotions of sadness which also fill me with great hope, the hope of heaven and of being reunited with my husband and children in paradise and seeing the Father face to face. This guarantee fills me with consolation. I will always continue working to fulfill my husband's dream to live in peace and harmony, and work together for the good of all. "I forgive the other, because I have first received forgiveness from Jesus Christ When we forgive, there is no bitterness and we live our lives and continue the task entrusted to us - with His grace and peace. Her appeal to "To the believers in rest of the world I say, do not give up hope, pray for India."

Wow! what a story of commitment. Here is another example of a woman who not only accepted good from God but also adversity. Inspite of a great personal tragedy and loss she never deterred from the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ which is to bring peace and hope to lepers living in the villages of Eastern India. It is not the adversity that makes us bitter but it is how we respond to it.

IV. WHAT GOOD CAN COME OUT OF ADVERSITY?
When we go through difficulties we need something more than knowing that God is with us in difficulties. We also need hope that our suffering is not in vain.” Have you noticed that some families of lost loved ones, while dealing with their grief also work to reform laws or change social conditions that lead to the death of their loved one? Why? Because they need to know that through the death of their loved one, something good will come out which will benefit a lot of people? For example, the brutal murder of a 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a Nevada casino in 1997 has led to a new law called Sherrice law in California that makes it a crime to witness the assault of a minor without notifying the police.”

There are ample evidences in the Bible where God has turned adverse situations not only for the advantage of those who were suffering but also for the advancement of his Kingdom. In the case of Joseph God has turned the evil intended by his brothers into something good where by not only his family but the whole nation was saved from starvation.

V. HOW DO WE RESPOND TO ADVERSITY?
How do we respond to adversity? Not many of us are good at handling adversity in a right way. When some thing doesn’t go according to our way we tend to become sullen, depressed, stop reading the bible, stop talking to God, get angry at God, and blame every body else. Some even go to an extent and curse God and yet if we only care to crawl on to our heavenly father’s lap to receive comfort and healing. Instead of being estranged from God we will draw near to Him. As the Bible says when we draw near to him He will draw near to us.

It is one thing to know and say that God causes all things work together for the good, but do you realize that these promised and blessings are only reserved for those who love Him and to those who are called according to his purpose? In other words only those who have accepted the Lord as their personal savior receive blessings.

I have no clue of the depth of what you might be going through, but one thing I know in Psalm 34:18-19 “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, And saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; But the LORD delivers him out of them all.” If you have never accepted the Lord as your savior you can do that by asking the Lord to forgive your sin and heal your broken heart. If you are already a believer then according to James 1:2-4 “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

No matter who you are today if you are going through adversity call upon the name of Jesus, he understands your suffering “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those are being tempted.” Heb 2:18. Amen