Lent series: Suffering, part 4, Living Another Way

SUFFERING (a weekly Lenten reflection - part 4, Living another way)

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2-4)

A few years ago, Steve and I had a series of difficulties all coming together within quite a short space of time. My father in law died, we had £10,000 stolen from us, and there was a breakdown in relationship between us and very close family members, which was very upsetting. Steve was diagnosed with prostate cancer, requiring major surgery, and then my fourteen year old nephew very nearly succeeded in hanging himself.

What do we do when relationships start to go wrong?

How do we respond to serious health issues?

And what about financial challenges? Betrayals? Deep disappointment? The death of a loved one?

In Romans 5:5 Paul echoes what James says:
We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Glory? Glory? Suffering can be many things, but surely NOT glorious?
I think that for the yielded believer, in the suffering there is a unique opportunity for the painful situation to be redeemed. The possibility exists for the suffering itself to somehow become a conduit for great and very beautiful fruit to develop in our characters, as Paul suggests.

Romans 5:5 again:
Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character;

The formation of spiritual fruit in our characters - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, is the outworking of the Spirit, and I think that this fruit, most often perfected in suffering, IS indeed, glorious, in God’s sight.

Nick Cave, renowned Australian singer songwriter, who has known more grief than many, having lost his own father at a young age and then two sons, is described as having remained an unrelenting guardian of joy

He says this, “suffering is, by its nature, the primary mechanism of change… it somehow presents us with the opportunity to transform into something else, something different, hopefully something better… this change is not something we necessarily seek out; rather, change is often brought to bear upon us, through a shattering of our former selves…”

Firstly, ‘consider it pure joy’, is, I think, an invitation to surrender, often without answers, to our Heavenly Father, even when we cannot understand what’s going on,and when the way ahead is confusing, and even terrifying.

In yielding to our good Father in the dark helplessness of our suffering, something happens within us that may have far reaching consequences - blessing when we want to curse, loving when we want to hate, preferring others over ourselves, forgiving the unforgivable - in the pain, in the sorrow, in the heartache. It looks to give and not receive, to lean in to God and to worship Him, and not to withdraw.

Secondly, suffering offers us an invitation to more deeply understand and enter into the pain of others with true compassion. It is also like a huge scale that weighs the real and the counterfeit in our lives - you see, perhaps because of it, we will discover that the greatest treasures are, after all, the very things that, when our lives are comfortably rolling along with ease, we pay least attention to, push into the background, and even, give little time to.

God’s desire is that we mature, not only in years, but in faith and this happens as we navigate our trials, but ONLY if we surrender to Him in the process. Otherwise, what happens is that we simply stay immature, but become old, often bitter & critical, along with the wrinkles and the arthritis!

The why? where? what? questions that we so badly want answered in our struggles, in my opinion and experience, are rarely answered by God - but there IS one question that will always be answered and it is this…

How?

How do I respond to the accusations levelled against me, as Jesus would want me to? How do I hang on to hope in God, when all hope seems to have gone? How can I go through this crisis in such a way that I become more like Jesus, as a result?

Watchman Nee, evangelist, theologian and author, tells the story of a Chinese Christian who owned a rice paddy right next to one owned by his communist neighbour. In order to irrigate his rice paddy, the Christian pumped water out of a nearby canal. And every day, after the Christian had pumped enough water to fill his field, the communist would come out and remove some boards that kept the water in the Christian’s field and let all the water flow down into his own field. That way, he didn’t have to work hard to pump water.

Well, this process continued day after day. Finally, the Christian prayed, “God, if this keeps up, I’m going to lose all my rice and maybe even my field. I’ve got a family to care for. How should I deal with this?”

In answer to his request, God put a thought in his head. So, the next morning he rose in the predawn hours of darkness, and started pumping water into the field of his communist neighbor. Then he replaced the boards and pumped water into his own rice paddy. In a few weeks both fields of rice were doing well, and the communist, experiencing the sacrificial love of the upside down Kingdom of God, became a Christian.

There are two ways to handle a situation like this. One way is to become angry, and offended and to take measures into our own resentful, spiteful hands. The other way is to become a servant, and go low. To allow the challenge to conform us to the image of Christ.

Could we, somehow, in the waiting, longing, hoping, turn the other cheek? Could we pray for the one who has betrayed us, let us down? Love the unlovely? Hope against hope?

We CAN choose to live another way.