How to Get the Most out of Your Suffering

Suffering in some capacity is inevitable. My shoulder aches from a car accident three months ago. I am a little down from lack of sunlight in the three and a half hour Alaskan winter days.  I could go on, but you get the point. You have your list too, I am sure. But so much of the time, our suffering is a hamster wheel. We can get worn out trying to run from it, only to end up at the same place. Only now we are exhausted from running without purpose.

“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange was happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the suffering of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:12-13)

I do not perhaps fully appreciate this verse. The sound of a fiery ordeal does not inspire me to great leaps of faith. But herein lay a promise that helps me to take my suffering and actually benefit from it. Jesus suffered the cross for the reward He would receive afterward. Just this one act began the salvation of the world. My suffering won’t save the world, but like the suffering of Jesus, it can come with great reward.

Does my suffering have a great purpose?

That depends on my participation, does it not? Before Jesus healed the blind man, he was asked why the man had been so cursed. Was it his or his parents’ fault. Neither said Jesus. It was so that God might be glorified. Whoa. That is not the answer anyone expected. I don’t think Jesus would say that all the blind or deaf people in the world or any other physical affliction exists purely for the glory of God. That would be to glorify suffering in a bizarre and unjustifiable way.

Instead, He is assigning purpose to that man’s suffering at that moment. That blind man had the faith to ask and receive. He was in the right place at the right time. Giving our suffering purpose means that we must cooperate with the purposes of God.

Here is how it works in my life. While I was married to my ex, I suffered terrible abuse. I don’t believe it was God’s will for me to be abused. But the great Redeemer of all things began to move in my heart. As I sought Him in the midst of my suffering, the deliverance began. First He delivered me from the deceptions of narcissistic abuse. Those beliefs included the idea that I could change my husband, that if I was a good wife then he would be a good husband. He set me free on the inside and then gave me the courage to leave.

The suffering I underwent made me wiser, I suppose, but that isn’t redemption or purpose. Now I find myself ministering to women through my writing and through direct contact. I am going to court today to support one such woman who has undergone similar abuse. I am the person that I needed when I was caught in the trap. My experiences help to pull some women some of the time out of the deception. To me, that is great purpose.

Does my suffering bring reward?

Part of me wants to answer… Well, I will let you know. But if I am honest, my suffering has done a number of things for me but only insofar as I have involved the Lord in it. When I see women at church living in abusive situations, I really suffer for them. I feel a bit helpless because I know that they, like me, need revelation from God to know what to do. But I do know how to pray for them. I don’t pray that God will change their husbands. I pray that God will give them real revelation and the strength to live out the truth He reveals. I ask Him to set them free from the inside out.

For me the reward has changed, is changing. I am engaged in battles that I cannot see and yet discern. I have victories in the spirit that work their way down into victories in my life and the lives of others. None of my daughters are married to abusive men. That is a win. A big win. My marriage is fulfilling. That is a real reward and one made possible in part for the wisdom I earned the hard way. I have a vocation as a writer that I could only glimpse at decades ago. My life matters to others and is not spent trying to maintain a fragile sense of worthiness. That is a great reward.

How do I discover my identity?

Suffering purges the unnecessary from our lives. It has a way of eliminating the extraneous details that seem so important. Ask a cancer patient what matters. My guess is that they won’t say fashion, popularity, or wealth. They are staring into eternity and the grieving faces of their loved ones. They know what matters in a whole new way. And so too, do we, when we allow suffering to do its work.

I identify with Christ in new and meaningful ways when I feel compassion for the suffering people in the world. To love is to suffer. To spend oneself in the service of others is to suffer. But I want to suggest this: That to lose our self-importance for the sake of love is to begin to enter into true significance. Think about those whose lives have influenced you most deeply. Is it the charming celebrity or is it those members of your family, whether relatives or within the church, that have shown up and stayed at the worst moments of your life?

Lastly, to take the Calvary road is to choose to suffer.

Jesus chose to die. Greater love has no man than he who lays down his life for his friends… Choosing to accept the grace of God as expressed on the cross is to accept the suffering that comes with the reward. Perhaps fewer people would rush to get fire insurance at the altar if they understood this. That to enter into a relationship with Love, one then begins to express that love. And love is expressed in part by long-suffering.

We suffer as we intercede on behalf of others. We take on their burdens, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. We groan with the Holy Spirit on behalf of the lost. We enter into battles we have no guarantee of winning in the short term. In fact, the moment we are saved, we begin the process of dying to self. Suffering can be meaningless and random. But that is only when we cooperate with the enemy.

Behold, God is making all things new. What suffering have you undergone that He wants to make new? Are you willing to lean into it with Him and let it bring you great reward on His terms and in His timing? If so, I wish you all the blessings that only suffering can bring without any of the damage it can wreak. And I invite you to place it in the hands of the only one who can turn our blindness around to His glory.

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How to Make Meaning out of Suffering