The Process of Suffering

 

God’s been teaching me about the spiritual process of suffering. These are just some of my personal observations. 

There is a spiritual process of suffering. 

First, the Big Ugly Thing introduces itself to you, and you are bewildered. You may despair even of life itself (2 Cor. 1:8). Questions commence. You suspect that like Job and Peter, Satan is sifting you like wheat, under the watchful eye of God (Luke 22:31, Job 8:12). You wonder what you’ve done to deserve it and whether God hates you. 

During this time your faith feels as thin as fleeting fog. Things you thought you knew, you no longer know. Through the shadows, you cling by a thread to hope. You want everything to go back to normal, but it doesn’t. So you trudge along in a haze, shaken, suffering. 

Next in the process comes the Fight. Somehow, faith rises, and you become determined to not allow the Big Ugly Thing to take over. You commence fighting the good fight of faith (1 Tim 6:12). For maybe the first time, you start taking God’s Words about suffering seriously. You try to figure out how to literally count it all joy (James 1:2). You think more about sharing in Jesus’ sufferings (2 Cor 4:10, Phil 3:7-11). You recognize the fragility of your clay jar - even of all of life (2 Cor 4:7). You consider that your present suffering is not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in you (Romans 8:18). You fight hard to believe these things. 

You don’t know it at the time, but some very serious things are happening to your character during the Fight. Useless things are being cast out, and new things are being planted. The old man is fading, and Christlike qualities are growing. Faith, hope, moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, patient endurance, godliness, affection, and more - all culminating in a more sincere love. Those who suffer much love much. 

You’ll never be the same. You won’t call yourself stronger, just different. Slower. Less judgy. Lower. More sincere love.

Finally the test - the trial - the Big Ugly Thing, begins to pass from the scene of your life. You exit the hour of suffering like a soldier after battle: wounded, hoping it’s actually over, but very much alive. As the shadows fade, God whispers promises into your heart, creating new hopes and dreams. He says a new thing will spring up (Isaiah 43:18) and that a new branch will grow from your old root (Isaiah 11:1). What Satan intended for evil God will use for good (Genesis 50:20). You gather yourself, and now you walk with a limp, but still you walk forward, away from the Big Ugly Thing, out of the Fight, and into God’s weird future.