Suffering

I was challenged to investigate the role of suffering in a Christian’s life. I thought it was something to be avoided at all costs. I thought it didn’t jive with a productive, faith-based lifestyle. I thought that suffering is something that went away once Christ was part of a person’s life.

I was wrong. Suffering is an expected and worthy occurrence in a Christian’s life. How can it not be? If we are truly trying to be like Christ, suffering is mandatory. Sounds pretty dismal, doesn’t it? I could easily get wrapped up in hopelessness when I think that my life will include suffering. But, that would be missing the point of Christ-like suffering. We were never promised that we wouldn’t suffer but our current suffering is just a moment in time, a breath, compared to the expected joyful glory to come.

In Romans 8, the apostle Paul tells us that we suffer as Christ suffered so we may also be glorified with Him. The passage goes on to describe suffering using the analogy of childbirth. Childbirth is painful. But it only lasts a short time in comparison to the amount of time we have with the children the pain brings forth. The pain actually helps us expect the joy that is coming. So a few hours of pain brings forth hundreds of thousands of hours of joy. (I calculated it out to over 700,000 hours; 24 hours in a day x 365 days x 80 years = 700,800 hours in a life.) That comes out to childbirth pains (assuming labor takes 10 hours) being only .014% of the time we are dealing with our children. And, in spite of the pain I know I experienced, I don’t really remember it after 18 years.

Another verse in Romans 8 said that our current suffering is not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to come. It’s not a 1 to 1 ration. We don’t just get 1 cup of glory for 1 cup of suffering. The ratio is incomparable. It’s like 1 cup of suffering to infinity cups of glory. Immeasurable. Incomparable. Incomprehensible.

So it’s not that suffering doesn’t exist. It’s just not as important as we make it out to be in the overall scheme of things. It lasts only a brief time. It hurts only a little bit. And, the glory that will come to us is well worth the suffering and the wait.