A heavy feeling found its way over my heart as I was listening to a friend of mine talk about what’s been going on in her life. She was telling me how she’s been struggling with all the different situations in her life. She tells me how it feels like she can’t seem to catch a break and that she always seems to be facing something new every day and that they always seem to be harder than the last situation. What troubled me more was that she talked about giving up at times and she’s been trying to find something to hold on to. Deeply concerned, I tried to find something that could give her some kind of hope she can cling to.
Words were spinning around in my head as I waited for them to align themselves into some kind of order and at that moment I asked myself one of the most important questions I’ve ever asked myself, “why do we suffer?”
I began to break down the question and looked at the focus word, suffer. Webster’s Dictionary defines “suffer” as “to tolerate or endure evil, pain, or death. To endure or bear; stand.” This definition threw me back a bit. When we hear a word like suffer, we think about agony, pain, and distress. Generally we think about suffering with negative connotations. However, the definition seems to portray a different feeling, a feeling of hope. But how can this be? How can hope ultimately come from suffering? How can something that can push a dead and dying world through to a new day come from the worst of times? It seems to be one of the greatest contradictions I have ever come across.
As a Christian, I believe that there is truth found in The Word. So I turn my eyes to the Bible and find myself in the story of Job. The story of Job seems to epitomize the very meaning of suffering. This guy had pretty much everything he could ever ask for. He had tons of land, cattle, money, and a enourmous house. He had a wonderful and beautiful wife and children who loved him. He had servants who respected and served him with loyalty. This guy was on the top of the world with the amount of things he had. Most importantly, he had a deep and personal connection with The Maker of the Heavens. His faith was unfailing. Until one day, the devil made a bet with God saying that Job only follows You because he as everything he wants. God says if you really think that, then take away all that he owns and I can assure you he will still have faith in me. Within a few months, Job had lost everything, his house, cattle, money, servants, wife and kids. But yet Job still held on to the hope he had in God. The devil didn’t think that was enough even then. He took away his health until Job was near death. Still Job didn’t let up and kept his faith in The Almighty. Why didnt Job just quit when he saw the first signs of suffering? Why did he endure through such tragic and trying times? It was the Hope that he had In The Creator that served as his anchor; his everlasting rock that he stood upon.
Look at the civil rights movement; people like Martin Luther King Jr. Rosa Parks, John M. Perkins, and many more had their work cut out for them. It wasn’t easy trying to achieve equality for not only Blacks but for every individual that lives in America. They endured such torment and distress for such a long time that for some, it ultimately lead to their deaths, but they endured. Not one person threw in the towel or waved a white flag of surrender. They were suffering for a much larger cause, a cause bigger than themselves. They believed in a different American dream. A dream that transcends their suffering and their hurt. Every lynching, beating, hurtful word, and imprisonment was made worth while. All their fallen friends did not die in vein. Why, you may ask, because these heros chose to hope and believe in a world that didnt exist at the moment. With that hope, with that suffering came a new world of justice and equality.
Ask any long distance runner how they got to where they are at and they will say, “I suffered.” Ask any fighter how he got to where he is now and he will say, “I suffered.” Ask any long sustaining civilization how they got to where they are now and they will all say, “we suffered.” I’m fairly convinced that if we could ask Job how he has reached such peace he would say, “I suffered.” It seems to be the key to an ultimately happy ending to almost every aspect of human life; to suffer, to endure, to tolerate, is the way one can achieve not only greatness, but more importantly ultimate peace.
It is the anthem for every cancer patient, every widow, every soldier. It is the song sung by every depressed teenager, for every fighter, every musician, nation, people, coach, and hero. They have all suffered so much and sacrificed so much to achieve something greater than their situation, something much greater than themselves. In their eyes, suffering is just a bridge they must cross to get to a world where, due to their situations, at the moment does not exist, yet. They hold on to the hope that one day the suffering will end and their world will change from suffering to happiness.
As if I couldn’t come up with more illustrations and anecdotes, look at a refiner. When a refiner is refining gold, he has to subject it to intense heat inside of a huge burner where temperatures reach up to well over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. The refiner’s job is to rid the gold of any impurities until it is pure gold with no traces of copper or silver in it. The gold gets red hot until it starts to melt and the refiner pull it out to let it cool down, then repeats the process. The whole process takes up to two to four hours long until the gold is done. Some people may ask the refiner, “how do you know when the gold is ready.” In this case, the refiner says, “I know it’s done only when I can see my reflection in it.”
So to in an attempt to answer the question “why do we suffer?” my answer takes on Socratic form, “what happens if we do not suffer?” Without some sort of suffering, there is no progress. Without it, there would be no peace, no justice; oddly enough there would be nothing but a dying world without suffering. Suffering refines our characters, makes us better individuals. If a basketball team doesn’t suffer, there would be no championship. If civil rights activists did not suffer, there would be no justice, no equality. If the Son of Man, whom suffered the worst of all, did not suffer on the Cross, there would be no Redemption for a failing world. His suffereing is unparallel. Imagine all the sins of man weighing down on Him at one single moment. It was so immense that even The Father could not bear the sight and turn away. Why did He choose to suffer? He suffered so we, the broken, failing, underserving mess we are, can achieve Redemption and Salvation. If we do not suffer, there is no hope for a better world; there is no hope for a world that does not yet exist. A world of peace, a world of eternal salvation and life, a world of Love.
The most important thing to remember is that The Infinite Refiner Himself is ultimately in control of our situations. He knows how to turn us during the blazing heat, and when to finally pull us out. The question I have for you is “do you reflect the image of The Creator? Do you ultimately reflect the image of Love?” It is only when that answer is yes, is when the suffering has worth, has meaning, and has depth.
"When you're going through hell, keep going."
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