Pain, Gain, and Christ

Do not waste your suffering:

All true people of God, from the ancient Jews, to contemporary Christians, have understood the reality that pain and suffering can serve a vitally useful spiritual purpose. Strange as that might sound, the testimony of millions of believers testifies to this truth.

Just one biblical text from each Testament – out of so many – can be mentioned here. David tells us in Psalm 119:71, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn your statutes”. And the Apostle Paul told us in Romans 5:3-5, “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.”

Suffering has a way of getting our priorities right, weaning us away from the world and its trivial pursuits, and drawing us much closer to God and that which matters. No, such hardships and pain and suffering are never pleasant or fun in themselves, but they certainly can result in very good outcomes for us.

In a fallen world we are stuck with all sorts of pain and suffering, but we know that it will not last forever. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18:

 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Suffering can be a stepping stone or a stumbling block, depending on how we respond to it. Atheists of course bring up the problem of evil and suffering all the time, thinking it proves there is no God, or that religion is just bunk. I get folks like this all the time coming to this site.

The trick is to discern if they are just asking rhetorical questions, or if it is an honest inquiry. Are they just trolls wanting to waste my time, or real deal seekers? Consider one such comment that recently came to my site.

I’m always curious about why believers in life after death have the same will to live as nonbelievers. If I was a believer I think I’d have little interest in preserving life as long as possible. This would be especially true in the later years of life when continuing to live becomes increasingly distressing, both for oneself and one’s family. In fact I wonder why a God would want a physical world in the first place. Why not just create spirits and bypass the pain and suffering that many endure without obvious rhyme or reason?

There are many things one can say in response. The issue is not preserving life as long as possible, but enjoying the world that God made for us to live in. Yes, the Fall has substantially marred it, so we now have great joy and great pain as we live on planet earth.

And this person should understand that pain and suffering are not just confined to the physical. There is such a thing as mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual pain. But as already mentioned, this pain will not always be with us, and it can make us into much better people as it draws us much closer to God.

A suffering Australian Christian

With all that in mind, I want to discuss two people who have known much suffering. Both are Christians, and both have a strong faith in a wise and loving God as they endure so much pain and hardship. The first one is a wife and mother I know in Sydney.

She has been through the wringer for years now, but she does not complain, and she has not turned bitter. Instead, she trusts God and manages to still praise him throughout. She sometimes shares her story on the social media. Just the other day she posted this, and she gave me permission to share it here:

A friend PM’d me and asked for an update on life, so here it is…

I am trying to train myself not to swear when pain in my legs and body suddenly becomes excruciating, I am also training myself to breathe, not panic when the pain seems unbearable. I am training myself to ask Jesus to come and be with me in my pain instead of allowing anger or fear to fill me when pain nearly cripples me.

 

Rheumatoid arthritis can attack at any time any or many joint/s in the body and one can be in remission or relapse. My worst joints at the moment are my knees; in particular my left knee, but my right knee has been getting worse compensating for taking the extra weight and pressure for my really bad knee, my son has taken to calling me “wobbles” lol, and I am prone to tripping and falling due to my knee giving out and my leg dragging, but as well as my knees; my jaws, particularly my left side, my wrists and hands particularly the right side, can dislocate or become unbearably painful at any given moment. Fibromyalgia means that I have extreme pain in all of my muscles all over my body – often even to the touch. I also have long term advanced degenerative disc disease in my spine and severe fatigue. For the last 13 years my RA has been fairly stable on the medication I have been on with modifications and the support of a physio and rheumatologist, but I have relapsed to a worse place now than I was at the beginning.

 

Because of living costs rising and the fact that our government forces us to pay for health insurance, I pay the insurance, but cannot afford to pay the gap to receive treatment or services. I have been waiting for months to get into the public rheumatology clinic at Westmead hospital. Meanwhile I am getting worse. Prayers would be appreciated please that some breakthroughs and answers might be forthcoming.

She went on to say that making matters worse, it is possible that her husband may soon lose his job. So she asked for prayer – big time. While this post did not speak too much about her hope and trust in God, those traits are most certainly there in her life. She loves Christ and is a wonderful witness for him, despite all her pain and suffering.

A suffering American Christian

John Paine is a man I have never met, nor had I ever heard of him until a week or so ago, when I saw his story featured on a Christian television program. He too has suffered tremendously, including with so much physical pain. When I viewed his testimony, I thought of my Sydney friend.

And when I saw her post just recently, I thought again of this guy. So I commented on her post with these words: “I do not want you or John to suffer, and I pray for you both daily. I recently saw his story – sometimes it can help to know of others going through similar things.” I found a video of this story, and I sent her the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk2QBCzQnSI

You can watch that hour-long video to get his whole moving story, but here it is in brief:

John was a very successful businessman and Christian with a wonderful family. His family life was terrific, but he was a very driven man – a workaholic. He always seemed to win, to succeed, and to do well. Like so many males, he liked to be in control, and he loved being independent. Being dependent was not something he valued too much.

But amidst all this success and terrific family life, his world was turned upside down real fast. At the age of 48, he noticed some physical issues, so he undertook a battery of tests. He was told he had ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). It is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The neurologist told him “Go home and get your affairs in order.” That is because there is no known cure for ALS, and it becomes utterly debilitating.

One medical site says that it

is a neurological disorder that affects motor neurons, the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement and breathing. As motor neurons degenerate and die, they stop sending messages to the muscles, which causes the muscles to weaken, start to twitch (fasciculations), and waste away (atrophy). Eventually, in people with ALS, the brain loses its ability to initiate and control voluntary movements such as walking, talking, chewing and other functions, as well as breathing. ALS is progressive, meaning the symptoms get worse over time.

So now John is totally dependent on others for everything: being clothed, being fed, being moved around, and so on. While paralysis takes over the body, the pain ramps up. As we hear from the 30-minute mark of the video:

His daughter: “Though their muscles have deteriorated, their nerves are hypersensitive, and so he feels everything to a heightened degree. . . . Even though he’s just sitting down, [his arm] is pulling out of its socket because it has no muscle to keep it there.”

 

His doctor: “Even though one cannot move a limb or can be completely immobile, sensation and feeling is completely preserved.”

 

His daughter again: “Losing all that he’s lost is one thing to imagine. Doing it with all the pain he’s in adds a whole nother element to it for me. That’s the hard part for me, is watching him in pain. It’s one thing, I know I’m sad about the other things, but to physically be in pain from the time you’re awake to the time you go to bed, that has been for me something I have really struggled with watching. And I think it’s a lot worse than what he even lets on about.”

 

His wife: “Just to live the day, he has to do so much, and he’s so uncomfortable so much of the time. And yet most of the time he has a good attitude.”

And we see in the last half of the video the smiling, happy John sharing biblical truth, mentoring others, praising God, and actually saying how all this has drawn him so much closer to God. In fact, he says that if he now had the choice to be physically whole again, so that he can hug his grandkids and hold his wife’s hand, or be as he now is, and so very much nearer to God, he would choose the latter.

But my write-up does not do justice to the video, so please have a watch. And given that I am more of a book guy than a video guy, I discovered that a few years ago his story was written up: The Luckiest Man: How a Seventeen-Year Battle with ALS Led Me to Intimacy with God (Thomas Nelson, 2018). So I will get that book as well and write it up. Stay tuned.

John and my Sydney friend both suffer immensely, with so much physical pain. But both would tell you that they fully love, trust and worship God throughout it all. And of course they both know that soon enough they will be in his wonderful presence forever, with no more tears and no more pain.

We do not have all the answers now as to why we go through so much suffering and hardship. But it is enough to know our God is not aloof or immune from this. His own son suffered and died so that we might be reconciled to him. So we can depend on him to get us through whatever it is we are now going through.

[2008 words]