If you are anything like me, you seek your own comfort, maybe even above all else. I cannot seem to help myself. I have a terrible tendency to avoid pain at all costs. I simply seem to enjoy myself when I am at ease, comfortable, and pain-free. Suffering seems to be a thing to run from. God seems to have a different perspective on suffering. Certainly God the Father suffered when He sent His Only Begotten Son to be mocked, tortured, and killed by rebellious subjects. Certainly God the Son suffered when He willingly left the comforts of heaven to live in a cursed and fallen world. Surely God the Son suffered when He was mocked and killed by enemies He had come to seek and save. Surely God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit suffered when perfect, untarnished, never-before-broken fellowship was broken on The Cross. No possible suffering I could undergo could in any way compare to the suffering felt by the Trinity. For starters, the members of the Trinity are and have always been totally innocent. You and I were born in sin because of Adam’s sin and then as soon as we figured out how, we began to sin as fast as we could. I think most of us would agree that innocent suffering is more difficult to deal with than suffering caused by our own failures. You and I have really never been innocent.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 speaks to some benefits to suffering, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort. (NASU) When we suffer, it ought to crowd us to God. If we turn to Him, He will comfort us. After we are comforted by God, we are apt to and able to comfort others.
Suffering is redemptive. When I suffer for my own mistakes, failures, and sin that suffering is in some way redemptive for me because hopefully I learn from these failings, repent and turn to Christ. Suffering for the mistakes and sins of others is also redemptive for me because it helps to conform me to the image of Christ. This seemingly innocent suffering is also redemptive in another way. It is redemptive for others who see and know. When others see me suffer even though I did nothing wrong (in that one isolated instance), it points them to Christ, if I suffer graciously as Christ suffered. If I yell and lash out, I have suffered in vain because I have forfeited the opportunity to point unbelievers to Christ. Suffering is not to be sought after; however, if I am truly to be a disciple of Jesus, I must learn to stop abhorring suffering and instead embrace it as the opportunity that it is. May the Lord grace us to apply this most difficult lesson.
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