For a long time I felt very angry for the amount of pain and suffering I had in my life. I blamed God, my family, my husband, and even myself. I believed that my life was meant for suffering and that God created me to suffer. It was incredibly hard for me to see anything else outside of that belief because it was so rooted in my identity.
The problem with that belief was it is so far away from the identity God has given to me. God has called me to bring hope through my story, but not even that truth was able to shake the foundation of the belief that I was born to suffer.
I don’t think I’m alone in these beliefs. I think a lot of people who have had hard lives begin to let pain and trauma shape their identities. It is easy when the people around you speak death and despair over you, instead of life and love.
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
James 1:12
As I have been on the healing path these past 7 years, I have come a very long way. I’ve moved from the mentality that I am never going to stop suffering to the belief that suffering does not get to define me. Suffering is not my god or master.
I remember the day I first began to realize I was letting go of the identity of the suffering servant. I had been in a season of physical suffering for years. I had so many problems that it was so overwhelming, which has always led me to emotional suffering. Year after year I prayed and begged God to take away from ailments and afflictions and it seemed like relief never lasted long. I kept trying so hard to renew my mind and believe what God says about His children, but it never seemed to stick, until one day it did. I was thinking about my pain and I realized that it was only a temporary part of the whole of my life. It wasn’t my identity, it was just something that I was experiencing.
For me, suffering has meant going into the deepest pits of despair and rage. If I’m suffering, then everyone around me will suffer because it is this all-encompassing force that takes over me. There is no peace or joy, only death, and hell. Yet when I let go of suffering as my identity I realized there was no reason for pain to have authority over me anymore. I am the one with authority over pain. Pain is a part of the human condition, but there is so much more to life! What the enemy has meant for evil, God uses to strengthen our character and learn endurance.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 3:3-5
What I couldn’t understand for all this time was that part of suffering is perspective. When you believe that you are suffering because God hates you, or is punishing you, or that you deserve it, then you are suffering from a place of complete despair. When we don’t allow hope into our suffering we can’t see where Jesus is in it. When you view suffering from Jesus’ perspective, it changes everything.
You see, for the Christian, suffering is not a new concept. We have come to the understanding that we live in a fallen world because of the choices of human beings, and that choice was to sin against God. That choice was to allow Satan to have a say in what we think and believe all the way back in the Garden of Eden.
Jesus suffered immensely. He suffered when he tried to resist the temptation to sin in the Garden of Gethsemane to the point of sweating blood. He suffered in front of Pontus Pilot when he was humiliated and sentenced to death as a criminal and he suffered when he hung on the cross and took on every sin that ever was or would be into his physical being. No one understands your suffering better than Jesus.
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
Suffering for those who follow Christ is never a punishment from the Father. It is persecution from the Father of Lies. Satan wants you to believe that he is the light bearer and wants only to help you and that God is evil and vengeful. God does not see our sin when He sees us; He sees Jesus instead – and so does Satan, and that’s why he hates us so much. What he doesn’t realize is that Jesus is not intimidated by Satan because He is the Conquering King!
Satan will take whatever rights he can from our ancestors to use them against us. He lures people into temptation to sin so that he can use their sins against them and their future generations. He is the great accuser and he wants to destroy our very soul, but God will not allow it. Satan has asked to thresh us like wheat, but Jesus intervenes every single time.
So that poses the question, why does God allow suffering? God allows suffering because He knows that suffering in and of itself is not evil. It is painful, it is difficult, but it is a tool to refine us and bring us closer to Him. It is a place where we come to the end of ourselves and see that we are not gods. It is a place of desperation where we realize that we cannot do this alone and only Jesus can help us.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
God has used human suffering over and over again to bring strength and redemption, but he only uses suffering in this way when we are suffering because of the human condition of sin. He never causes suffering for his people, and as a matter of fact, all of God’s judgments in the Old Testament were swift, not drawn-out suffering. God is not interested in watching humans suffer – the devil is. He loves human suffering because he wants us to be vulnerable to his attacks.
God on the other hand feels compassion for us and is always ready to help us in our need. Jesus is the one who calls to us to give Him our burdens so He can carry them instead. Jesus is in our suffering. He loves us like no other. He laid His life down for us. There is nothing wrong with suffering because it is a temporary condition that will be forever forgotten in heaven.
There is nothing that can separate us from God’s love and we need to walk in this truth especially when we are suffering. We need to remind ourselves of all God has done for us and know that goodness and mercy are His character, not evil. He can’t be evil, and He can’t do evil, but He can turn evil around to use it all for our good. And He will.
So today I urge you, proclaim God’s goodness over your hurting and suffering! Proclaim His healing, redemption, and provision over all your needs! Believe that He is with you always, and never will He forsake you.
God is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
Numbers 23:19
