It's tempting during times of intense trial to believe that we're suffering because we made a mistake or did something to anger God. I'm not talking about blatant disobedience. Disobedience always leads to suffering, but suffering isn't always a result of disobedience (Peter makes the distinction between suffering justly and unjustly in 1 Peter 3). I'm talking about that sinking feeling you get when tragedy strikes and you think, God must be out to get me.
While we may feel like God is angry at us in seasons of suffering, it's not true. In Philippians 1:29, Paul says, "For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him." According to Paul, suffering for Christ isn't a form of punishment doled out by an angry God; rather, suffering is a gift and a privilege.
David was a man who knew great suffering. If anyone were tempted to feel like a pawn in a cruel cosmic game, it was him. In 1 Samuel 23, David was on the run from Saul, the maniacal king who sought to kill him, and he was hiding in Philistine territory. Saul found out his location, so David immediately went to God in prayer and asked Him two questions:
1) Will Saul really try to capture me?
2) If he does, will the citizens of the town hand me over to him?
God answered yes to both questions, so David and his army of delinquent men had to flee once again.
By this point, Samuel had already anointed David as king - how then did David end up as a desert fugitive? It’s easy to assume that David's hardship was the result of God's abandoning him or punishing him - Did David do something wrong? Did God forget about Him? Did God change His mind about making David king? But verse 14 lets the reader know that God Himself was the reason David was in the desert in the first place, and He had a good purpose in it. "David stayed in the wilderness strongholds and in the hills of the Desert of Ziph. Day after day Saul searched for him, but God did not give David into his hands" (NIV, author's emphasis). God didn't protect David from suffering, but He guided him through it. And nothing happened to David that wasn't part of God's good plan.
We don't know all of the reasons why God had David in the desert for over a decade before he finally became king. But we do know what the Bible says about why we suffer. The primary reason is our holiness - to transform us into the image of Jesus. A secondary reason is to prepare us for what God has next. David's days in the desert made Him one of the most humble, God-fearing kings Israel ever knew. He wasn't perfect, but he was a man who knew the Lord intimately and trusted Him. David's time in the desert prepared him for kingship.
If we look back over our lives, we can likely see how God used our suffering as part of our story of redemption, too. As the saying goes, God turns our misery into our ministry. Our job is not to understand the why of our misery; our job is to trust the Who behind it. God's understanding is so much greater than our own, and as we learn to lean on His goodness and sovereignty in our suffering, we'll rest in the fact that He will bring beauty out of the ashes of our lives, just as He promises. God doesn't make mistakes. And if He captures every tear we shed and places them in His bottle (Psalm 56:8), we can be certain that none of our pain is wasted. Every bit of it has purpose, even if we can't always see it.
"The Lord is near the brokenhearted; He saves those crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18).
I love what Tim Keller says: "If we knew what God knows, we would ask exactly for what he gives," including the suffering He metes out. This statement is absolutely true, but it's hard to see it's truth when something happens that seems like a mistake or a cruel act of God. For me and Matt, that was Matt's job loss back in November and the heartbreaking ripple effects that have ensued. Nothing about it made sense or seemed to have any good purpose. It just seemed cruel. The Devil tried to convince us that this time was different - God wasn't going to come through for us like He had in the past. It was a battle to fight the enemy's lies, and it still is to some extent since we're not completely out of the weeds yet.
In a particularly dark time for us a couple months ago, a pastor's wife said to me, "It might be hard to believe that God has ordained this season of suffering in His kindness, but He has."
God's kindness has brought about this suffering.
That truth has brought me through some really hard days. Suffering seems so cruel, so unkind, but we only see a tiny piece of the whole picture. As Elisabeth Elliot says,
“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though ‘legions of angels’ might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.”
How about if we viewed the suffering we're experiencing as a gift, straight from the hands of a loving and kind Father? How might that change the way we walk through this season?
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