Why We Suffer

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| His Love in Suffering series |

• His Companionship in Our Distress
• His Plan for Our Pain
• Why We Suffer
• Rejoice in Suffering

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We are in a series on God’s love in our suffering.  Seeing the suffering in this world and experiencing suffering in our own life may make it seem that God doesn’t love us.  However, there is one character in the Bible whose story powerfully refutes this.  If God loved anyone, He loved Jesus.  Yet, Jesus suffered more than we can possibly comprehend.  Jesus’ story makes plain that our experience of suffering in no way negates God’s love for us.  So, when Jesus was suffering, how did the Father show His love? Why didn’t God prevent His suffering?  What came of His suffering? Answering these questions from Jesus’ story may also answer these questions for our own story.  Let’s see.

Just before Jesus was arrested and crucified, we find Him praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  He prayed and asked, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. … Being in agony He prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.” While my agony has never been so severe as this, I know that I’ve prayed this prayer many times in different forms, asking God to remove my suffering.  So, when Jesus asked the Father to remove His suffering, did God not listen?  The answer is found in Hebrews – “Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence.” But we know that Jesus still suffered and died on the cross, so if He was heard, what was the answer?  Back in Luke, we see the answer, “there appeared to Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him.” The Father loved Jesus, but that didn’t mean He kept Him from suffering.  However, He showed His love by strengthening Him in it.  Just as we discussed in the first week, God may not always remove our suffering, but He never leaves our side in it.

This doesn’t exactly tell us why we suffer, but the story of Jesus can help us to understand.  Let’s pick up where we left off in Hebrews, “Although He was a son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. And being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him”. These verses each provide a different aspect to the answer for why we suffer.

The first verse says that even though He was the Son of God, Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered.  Just a few chapters earlier, it also says that God “[made] the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” How incredible! Through suffering Jesus learned obedience and was made perfect.  How much more so then do we need suffering to learn obedience and to be made perfect.  Simply put, Jesus’ suffering produced good in Him.  So too does our suffering produce good in us.  Later in Hebrews it says this another way, “He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” The word used for ‘discipline’ here (paideia) can more broadly be understood as “instruction that trains someone to reach full development.” When God allows our suffering but strengthens us in it, He is training us for our good so that we might enjoy the peaceful fruit of righteousness. 

The second verse provides another aspect on the answer for why we suffer.  It says, “He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him”. Christ’s suffering produced incredible good for us.  Romans says, “by one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” Jesus was that one man and His obedience was the same obedience through suffering mentioned in Hebrews.  Last week we saw how our suffering produces good for others by empowering us to alleviate their suffering; we also saw that God has a plan to rescue us from our suffering forever.  Allow me to take this further.  We suffer now because we live in a broken world.  Jesus will put all things right when He returns.  But why doesn’t He do that now?  Why leave us to suffer? Peter answers this very question, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” So, the reason He hasn’t brought an end to our suffering is because He longs to give people more time to come to Him.  He truly loves everyone!  Our suffering not only produces good in us but provides time for more people to respond to His love.  Let us be patient in our suffering, knowing that our momentary affliction makes room for God to alleviate the suffering of others eternally.

Both verses provide a clear answer for our question.  We suffer because it produces good:

• Good for others presently by empowering us to alleviate their suffering
• Good for others eternally by making room for God to end their suffering forever
• Good for us presently by yielding the peaceful fruit of righteousness
• Good for us eternally by enabling us to receive the legacy that God desires to give us (more to come on this next week in the final story from this series)

Let us imitate Christ by our obedience, faith, and patience in suffering so that we might receive its full benefit.