Lent series: Suffering, part 2, A choice

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds
James 1:2-4

James is not saying that the trial itself is “all joy”.

So what is he saying? And what does he mean?

Suffering, trials and heartache are part of what it means to be human in a fallen world where the devil has a lot of influence and power. It doesn’t matter what we believe -  Buddhists,  Muslims,  pagans,  Hindus,  atheists,  Christians.

We all suffer. 

But one of the immense privileges of being a follower of Jesus, and this sets us apart from all the rest, is that in our suffering, we are not alone. We are not alone. We walk with one who has been there Himself. He has known betrayal, rejection, hatred, loneliness, abandonment, loss, grief, death.

Legend has it that Susanna Wesley, the mother of famed revivalists John and Charles Wesley, was once asked, which of her 19 children did she love the most and her immediate response was "the one who is sick, lost, hurting or feeling forgotten”.

Our God is a good father and I believe that His heart, also, like Susanna Wesley’s is drawn to His suffering children, maybe even disproportionately so.

We are not alone.

Tyler Staton, still in his 30’s, leader of Bridgetown church in Portland, USA, said this, after a gruelling year of treatment for a particularly aggressive cancer,

“The most scandalous part of Jesus, to modern ears, tends to be His claim to be God.

The most scandalous part of Jesus to ancient ears was that He, God, would suffer.

God on a throne, sure.

God on a cross? A God who weeps? A God who bleeds? A God who dies? Never”.

Tyler goes on to say…

“I understand why it's such a shock that God would suffer, but I also think that a God who does not suffer, probably isn't a God worth trusting. I mean, without the courage to crawl down into this world and fill the darkness with the same helplessness as the rest of us, how could God be trusted? How could God be relatable?

Without suffering, how could God author a story meaningful enough to hold my suffering?”

I believe it is possible to steward suffering that, remember, God did NOT author or design, and certainly never intended for His children.

And by stewarding, I mean, we can actually choose what we do with our suffering.

My son, Josh is a poet and he goes into Pentonville prison in London once a week to lead workshops for the men who are serving life sentences. He encourages them to connect with their emotions and to express themselves in poetry - their shame and guilt and longings and despair. Many have found, and are finding God in the process.

Josh told me recently

"We were all in a room with a small window and stained carpets, surrounded by stacked chairs and lifeless motivational posters. I asked one of the inmates how he kept going, knowing he’ll never be reunited with friends and family on the outside, knowing that he’ll spend the rest of his life within the confined and concrete walls of his cell. ⁣

He replied, ‘I have become a man of prayer’

I leant in, said Josh.

‘A few years into my sentence, I realised that my life isn’t all that dissimilar from the life of a monk. They wake up alone, in a silent and solitary cell. They sit down at tables with their brothers and eat simple meals, often in silence. They do manual work and then they return to their cell, alone. The monks choose that life and though given the chance, I would do it ALL so differently, now I can also choose to become a monk. I am a man of prayer and my prison cell has become the cell of a monk, in a monastery, where God surely is with me.”

Yes - this man must serve a long sentence for his crimes, but he also has a choice, as do we - for him, his remaining years will be marked, on the one hand, by a stifling monotonous routine, boredom and same old, same old. But on the other hand, the posture he has chosen to adopt will ensure a rich and full inner life, marked by deep intimacy with his God.

How then will we choose to live?

What will we do with our suffering?