Suffering

"For, in the same fire, gold gleams and straw smokes; under the same flail the stalk is crushed and the grain threshed; the lees are not mistaken for oil because they have issued from the same press. So, too, the tide of trouble will test, purify, and improve the good, but beat, crush, and wash away the wicked. So it is that, under the weight of the same affliction, the wicked deny and blaspheme God, and the good pray to Him and praise Him. The difference is not in what people suffer but in the way they suffer. The same shaking that makes fetid water stink makes perfume issue a more pleasant odor." St. Augustine

Suffering is never just suffering. I’ll tell you right now that I have colleagues who disagree with me. They say, “God would never allow . . . just to . . .”


My only problem with suffering as sometimes “just happening” is that it makes my pain meaningless and trivializes my agony. Granted, I have struggled with the place of suffering in my own life. I have stood beside the deathbed of members of my congregations over the years and thought to myself, “I can fathom no purpose for all this pain.” There have been hard times in my own life that occurred years ago, and I still struggle to find a sense of meaning for those events.


However, the idea of meaningless pain, of sacrifice that has no honor or nobility, no sense of courage, or benefit for some other person or some Grand Cause seems the cruelest of jokes a creator could play on creation. It IS most difficult to fathom the reason and depths of the Almighty, to claim that we have been enlightened and now understand the path a certain course of events has followed.

I believe there are times the waiting for meaning is the purpose of the suffering itself. The struggle with God has meaning. We struggle. We doubt. Yet, we hold on in the midst of that doubt, crying aloud for our Savior to hold onto us before we are swept away.


Jesus cried out on the cross to discover some sense of meaning in the crucifixion. MY GOD! MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME! This gives us the tiniest glimpse of the suffering and aloneness Jesus went through that we might have salvation.


For us, there are times the “fire” is a refining fire that burns away all that is unnecessary or deadweight. There are other times when the same “fire” refines our spirit into the finest of gold, fit only for the table of the King. The suffering of Jesus was redemptive. It purchased our salvation. My suffering and your suffering is instructive, eliminating that which only slows us down on our journey or separates us from our Creator. It teaches us patience, reliance on the Spirit, and the need for mercy that only God can give.


As you suffer in this moment, is it the straw that is consumed or the gold that is made brilliant. Either way, you are in the hands of a loving, master craftsman who is making you into his loving image.

Pastor Craig