Ep382. Suffer.
Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
I knew a lady with soft tissue damage. Car accident. The doctors didn’t have solutions and the insurance company was unfriendly. She felt stuck and I listened to ask that age-old question, Why does God permit this to happen?
I commented that the church we attended together had a theology of healing, but no theology of suffering. This was a new idea to her: a theology of suffering?
In the book of 1 Peter, two of the most frequent words are submit and suffer. Peter’s encouragement: endure suffering faithfully.
He instructs slaves: Submit, even if your master mistreats you. Better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil (1 Pet 2:18-20). He instructs all Christians: Don’t be surprised when a fiery ordeal tests you (1 Pet 4:12). Why? Because all over the world believers experience suffering (1 Pet 5:9). Perhaps we are next in line.
My preference is not to suffer at all! But Peter explains that Christ suffered for doing good, and so should we (1 Pet 4:13).
Consider three things that cause us to suffer.
1. First, we suffer because other people sin. All of us have father-wounds and mother-wounds from parents who were less than perfect. Entire nations endure suffering caused by power-hungry, violent, and corrupt leaders. By design or accident, by sin or carelessness, we humans cause each other to suffer.
2. The second cause of suffering? Our own sins and misadventures. As Billy Joe Shaver sings,
The devil made me do it the first time,
The second time I done it on my own.
– Billy Joe Shaver, The Devil Made Me Do It
It’s no surprise that we suffer from poor choices. A used car I chose required endless repairs and body work, until finally the engine broke beyond repair on a street in front of a liquor store. Too often I hit “send” on angry emails, putting friendships and relationships at risk. I should learn to choose better.
3. And third, suffering is part of living in a broken world. Families wiped out by a hurricane. Crops lost to insects, war, or drought. Race wars, ethnic cleansing, child soldiers. A recently retired couple planned to travel together, but he got Alzheimers. Now she travels to the dementia unit to see him.
I don’t want to end like that! I exercise and eat healthy to slow down aging. Doctors prescribe painkillers and psychology supplies self-help books. But at best I can only delay the end. I don’t get to choose whether my journey will be easy or painful.
Peter teaches us to endure suffering. Like Christ did. When we cannot eliminate life’s aches and pains, Peter invites us to walk through them with Christ as our companion.
Let’s pray.
O father, Jesus wanted to escape the cross. We want to escape our scrapes and pains.
But wherever we run and wherever we hide, suffering finds us. Give us grace to endure, to take courage because Christ suffered. To take hope because he promises a new world free of pain and tears and decay and death.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Where our path leads through fire or flood, as our bodies age and crumble, give us grace to walk with Christ, until at last we meet you face to face.
Amen.
I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.
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