5 Mistakes Christians Make About Personal Suffering by Chris White

Recently I was watching a travel program about the wine country of southern France.  The host of the program was interviewing one of the many winemakers in the area and asked her what makes for really good wine.  Surprisingly, she said the best wine comes when we make the vines suffer.  What she meant was that some of the best grapes are produced by vines grown in the harshest of conditions and the rockiest of soils.  I see a correlation between this and the growth of people.  We would think a life with ideal conditions present would only thrive and be productive.  But this isn’t always the case and in some people not true at all.  The reality is that the stress of trials, troubles, and tribulations often results in our best growth as persons. 

As I have been reading and meditating on scripture recently, I have been noticing just how much the New Testament speaks about suffering in our lives and its greater purposes.  That said, our broader culture and even church culture often gets this perspective wrong.  Here are 5 of my observations about how Christians get this wrong and how we should think personal suffering:

1.      Mistaking the consequences of wrong-doing for godly suffering.  According to Peter, suffering justly for one’s sins is not the same as enduring suffering that is unjust.  Only suffering that is meted out and endured when it is undeserved is commendable to God (1 Peter 2:20-21).  This is not to say that suffering for your own wrong-doing is not without pain or purpose in the Christian life.  The writer of Hebrews reminds us “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons” (Heb. 12:7-8).  Such chastisement does cause us pain and suffering, but it’s done for our training in righteousness not our destruction.  The correct response to this kind of suffering is to repent, apologize and/or make restitution if a person has been hurt by your wrong-doing,  and actually rejoice that God loves you too much to let you go undisciplined.

2.       Believing that personal suffering is without any purpose.  Several years ago I was at a conference in which Joni Eareckson Tada was one of the invited speakers.  Joni’s story is fairly well-known (her bio here: http://www.joniandfriends.org/jonis-corner/jonis-bio/) through print and film, but her life achievements are prolific and her activism broad despite the fact that she has been quadriplegic for the past 47 years.  What was striking to me as a person in the audience that night was she never once alluded to her condition but spoke with great excitement about what God was doing around the world.  I harbor no doubts that Joni doesn’t have days that are frustrating and dark because of her physical condition, nevertheless, she seems to operate from the perspective that her particular suffering has been used by God as means of shaping her for greater purposes.  My home state of Oregon has the dubious distinction of being the first in the nation to legalize physician assisted suicide.  The mentality that promoted this law (it was a statewide referendum) and has taken advantage of it, is one in the same: life has meaning only if you are enjoying it.  If you are suffering bodily or psychic pain to the point you are no longer enjoying your life, then a prescription may be offered you to end your pointless suffering.  In the Bible, Job’s faithless wife suggested much the same thing when Job lost his health.  Job’s faithful response was we must accept both blessings and trials because ultimately they issue from God (Job 2:9-10).  Once again, the proper response to suffering is having the mentality that all that comes our way has been allowed by God and serves the purpose of testing and purifying your Christian faith (1 Pet. 1:6-8).

3.       Thinking you are all alone in your suffering.  By far, self-pity is one of the most powerful weapons Satan has at his disposal to wage war against your faith.  Trouble strikes our lives and causes us pain.  At first we are optimistic.  “This trial will pass soon or God will intervene somehow and then I’ll be happy again,” we think to ourselves.  But life’s problems rarely resolve quickly like they do on television.  As we go further into the journey of suffering, there is a subtle voice that seems to speak in our minds with a slight hiss.  “Sssseee, God doesn’t care about you and your ssssuffering, He’s too busy blessing everyone elsssssse!”  As we listen to this voice, self-pity sets in and soon afterwards is joined by its fraternal twin self-indulgence.   We are all alone in our troubles and might as well do something to ease the pain.  To this kind of attack, St. Peter writes “Resist him (the devil), firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world( 1 Peter 5:9.)  The truth is, if God really has singled you out among all the people in the world to suffer, you probably would be justified in feeling sorry for yourself.  But the reality is that all of us live in a broken world with a lot of broken people and therefore should wisely expect that the pain of this brokenness will intersect our lives from time to time.  We should probably be more shocked that we don’t suffer more than we do.  The point is you are not alone in your suffering.  God and everyone you know has endured or is enduring something painful in their lives.  The key to knowing this for certain is to be transparent about your struggle with others rather than isolate yourself.  You will be surprised what you’ll learn about others who you think are totally happy and blessed when you candidly share with them your sorrows.  Do this and you will pray for others, will have uncommon perspective, and defeat the enemy’s strategy of destroying your faith though self-pity.

4.       Thinking that suffering trials actually destroys a person’s faith.  Both Paul and Peter teach us that trials actually build endurance, character, and hope (Rom.5:3-5: 1 Peter 1:6-8.)  James carries this same idea noting the outcome of our testing produces steadfastness and deep growth in our souls which should be a source of joy (James 1:2-4.)  That said, many of us know people who have walked away from the faith as the result of a trial.  So, how does this square with scripture?  The trial of suffering is an instrument whereby the reality of our faith is tested.  Everybody would follow Christ if every prayer was answered and every Christian encountered nothing but blessing at every turn.  But the New Testament repeatedly teaches that true faith is believing without first seeing or trusting in the promise  of God based on his character not the results we see (Heb. 11:1; 2 Cor. 5:7.)  What happens in some people is that they receive the message of the gospel with great joy because of what it offers them, but when that joy is put to the test by troubles, their faith simply withers (Mt. 13:20.)  Put another way, trials are a means of revealing the true nature of our faith.  If it wasn’t real, it will be removed.  If it is real, a trial will, despite the pain in the moment, in the long run strengthen and temper the faith of a believer.

5.       Thinking that your suffering is more than a momentary light affliction.  In 2^nd Corinthians 4:16-17 Paul writes “So we do not lose heart.  Though the outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.  For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”  As a pastor for many years now, I have watched many dear people endure things you just never get over.  The loss of beloved children in accidents, businesses that took a lifetime to build suddenly failing, a dream retirement never realized because of early on-set dementia,  the heartbreak of a father dying just weeks before his first child was born and the list could go on.  These kinds of wounds never go away this side of heaven.  You get through these things (sometimes), but you honestly never get over them.  But we must never forget the reality of eternity.  If you belong to God and God has an eternity to bless you (which He will), then whatever sorrows you must bear by His appointment, though difficult now, are by comparison very momentary and very light.  We keep our hopes in eternity for that is where they are rightly placed because that is our true destiny.

Moving From "Why Me?" To Action by Chris White

Patrick Carr was the biographer of music legend Johnny Cash and knew him personally for more than 25 years.  In a recent book about Cash, he relates a story of one of his infamous drug binges.  Apparently after about 3 days of bing  Of course the flashlight dies in the blackness of the cave and feeling hopelessly lost, Johnny Cash decided to lie down in the cave and wait for death to overtake him.  This went on for a few hours and then Cash said he heard God speak very directly to his mind: “Get up and search your way out of the dark.  Dying is not your choice but mine and this is not the day!”.  Obviously Cash listened and found his way out, eventually kicking his drug problem of many years.  Having battled depression off and on for many years, I could really relate to this story.  Sometimes you do feel like you are lost in a dark cave and death would be a welcome event.  God didn’t rescue him.  God told him to get up and find his own way out of the darkness.  I have no doubt that God blessed him in his efforts, but the point is some things in our lives can’t get better unless we put forth some work.  A great piece of advice I learned a number of years ago: asking God why something has or is happening to you almost never brings you peace.  Asking God what you can do about it and doing it almost always does bring peace for it is action that absorbs anxiety not paralysis.  Are you stuck with a chronic issue or protracted trial?  Quit dwelling on the why and ask God to help you find the what, then go do it.

ing and feeling disgust for himself, Cash wandered into a cave with many tunnels and a small single flashlight.

Calling It Like It Is by Chris White

“And it came about as her soul was departing (for she died), that she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin.”  (Genesis 35:18)

 Rachel was exhausted and in the process of dying after a particularly difficult child birth when she named her baby boy “son of sorrow (Benoni)”.  The name was certainly accurate given the circumstances of his birth but it was only accurate according to his mother’s perspective.  She was in anguish leaving her husband (to his three other wives) and her newborn without a mother.  But Jacob wisely never made his son bear that burden and instead renamed him “son of my right hand (Benjamin).”  This too was an accurate expression of the very same situation.  Not having a mother and being the youngest of 11 other siblings, Benjamin was to become very close to his father being a particular comfort to him in his old age.  I think there are two powerful life lessons here: first, our personal, existential pain is never an accurate gauge of reality.  In the moment of tragedy (and they always come in moments not lifetimes) we all see through a glass darkly.  But that doesn’t diminish the reality that God has come, has redeemed us, and is doing away with the curse once and for all.  All will be well in the unfolding of history even if in this moment life really hurts.  Secondly, we should be very cautious in how we name anything.  It’s fairly common knowledge that people tend to live up (or down) to the names and nicknames we give them.  But more than that, how do you describe your trials?  How about your aches and pains?  Are they “horrible”, “excruciating”, “unbearable” and “devastating”?  Our descriptions can also set a tone that is out of sync with reality and actually make life more miserable (for ourselves and others) than it has to be.  Like Rachel we can get caught in the trap of making something out to be much worse than the situation warrants. Try speaking to yourself and others in terms that speak the truth, yet not apart from the reality that God is for us and with us in every circumstance.