The Fiery Trial - Rejoicing in Suffering

Why is it that we are surprised when the “fiery trial” comes into our lives? First Peter says we shouldn’t be; in fact, it is perfectly normal. Now, that sounds like a pretty miserable life if you ask me. Burning, painful suffering is normal!? Let’s figure this out.

First, Peter writes that the trials are “to test” us. What is God testing us for? And why does it have to hurt so much? It seems there are two sources of suffering spoken of here. One is the suffering that Christians experience when they are being mistreated because they are Christians. This includes persecution, ostracizing, insults, mocking, mistreatment, and even death – all because of our faith in Christ. Not many of us in the west have had to endure this type of suffering. Indeed it seems to be fairly limited and, when it does occur, not of the deadly sort of trouble. Yet, it does happen, and the Scriptures indicate that it will increase in the last days. So, it is helpful that Peter teaches and encourages believers to prepare them for when persecution does happen. Without these words – and others – we might not know how to respond when treated badly for our faith.

Another type of suffering is that which results when we do wrong. Peter warns that this type should never be found among believers in Christ. And, if it is, there is no reason to rejoice in it but rather to be ashamed. We have no one but ourselves to blame. However, God can and does use even this sort of suffering to grow our faith, which leads to the third, most troubling category of suffering.

God uses suffering for all sorts of reasons in the lives of His children. He is sovereign so there is no way around the reality that all suffering in the lives of Christians must first pass through His hands. God either ordains or allows suffering but always for reasons that He can justify, never capriciously. Generally it can be said that He uses all suffering for good. But what is good? Anything that fulfills His holy decrees and contributes to the accomplishment of His divine plan is good. Notice that what we may consider as a bad thing, in God’s ways of divine providence He may be using it for a greater good result.

So what is suffering designed to do in our lives? In 1 Peter there are several purposes given: to promote sanctification (4:1-12), to strengthen faith (1:6-7), to make us more like Christ (3:17-18), to prepare us for judgment (1:7), and as a prelude to exaltation (all of 1 Peter). So it is clear from Scripture that God’s insertion of suffering into our lives is all about improving and helping us. But why does His way of helping us have to be so stinking painful?

Think about it for minute. God made us. No one knows us better than He. We are sinners, redeemed yes, but sinners nonetheless. Our bodies are still fleshly and susceptible to rebellion. We still live in a fallen world, surrounded by evil and temptation. Worse, we have an enemy who wants nothing more than to destroy us or, at least, make our faith ineffective.

With all of that stacked against us, do we really think that by  just following God’s commands – using our own power – will ever make us holier, give us a rock-solid faith, turn us into copies of Jesus, give us the strength to endure anything, and get us ready to meet Him in person? Unless you have a severe case of delusions of grandeur I bet you would humbly agree that none of us can do any of this in our own power, no matter how pious we may think we are. So, we need God’s help.

To help us get to where He wants us, God knows that we must be broken of our love for self and be consumed with love for Him. As long as there is anything left in us of the flesh and the world, we will not quite be who He designed us to be. A chisel is a perfect tool to use for describing what He is doing. A sculptor uses a chisel (and a hammer) to cut away the excess marble to produce the work of art inside the rock. If the marble was alive it would say that it hurts to be turned into a thing of beauty. But the end result is a glorious thing.

Much of the reason for the painfulness of suffering is because of our own stubbornness. At its root, stubbornness is the manifestation of unbelief and pride, two attitudes totally incompatible with being Christlike. I feel like it is somewhat up to us just how much suffering we must experience before we give in and allow God to have His way. But that’s not correct. He knows us perfectly, right? So it follows that God knows just how far to take this suffering thing to produce exactly the result He wants; not too little and not too much. Sadly, it often takes far more suffering than we can actually handle. And that may be the secret: He must bring us to a place where we realize that we can no longer endure it, that we must turn it over to a loving heavenly Father who can endure for us. Never let it be said that “God won’t give us more than we can handle.” He most certainly will, and He does it quite often. Change one pronoun in that sentence and you’ve got it right: “God won’t give us more than He can handle.”

Further along in 1 Peter 4 we read of a strange behavior: rejoicing over suffering. Really, Lord? Not exactly what you might call a natural response to hardship, at least for mentally healthy human beings, is it? But Christian faith, if it is nothing else, is often counterintuitive. In God’s economy (or, His way of doing things), we rejoice and glorify Him when life is good, but also when it is falling apart around us. You see, for the Christian who has been “taken to school” by suffering, every event in life is used by God for His glory and for our growth. The anticipation and excitement of seeing what He is going to accomplish as a result of this “bad” thing causes us to rejoice. For, you see, our heart’s greatest desire should always be to see God glorified in every aspect of life – ours and life in general.

If follows that the Christian who is learning his spiritual lessons will view every instance of suffering (or trials, troubles, temptations) as another opportunity to grow in their faith and to see God glorified. By viewing suffering in this way, our perspective changes. Sure, it may still hurt like crazy to have to experience this event but inside, our spirit has close communion with God’s Spirit and we know without doubt that He has got this and that, when it is all over, He will be more glorified and we will be holier, have a deeper faith, be more like Christ, or any number of other wonderful results.

Does this level of spiritual maturity happen overnight? No. In fact, it oftentimes takes years to get to this point. (Remember: our stubbornness, sinfulness, weakness, etc.) To get this sort of response to suffering from us, God knows that it will take repeated iterations of the lesson. Thankfully, the more we cooperate with His “training” regimen the easier it usually gets. As He proves Himself over and over again, His Spirit breaks through our veneer of self-reliance and speaks a resounding, “Let me handle this for you.” And, at some point, we respond, “Yes, Lord. You can have it. Take care of it for me.” An incredible thing happens when a believer gets to this point: the ‘bad’ thing no longer takes its toll on us as we really and truly do turn it over to our heavenly Father to deal with. You see, we all say, sometimes flippantly, “I’m trusting the Lord to handle my problem,” when in reality we are still holding on and trying to ‘fix’ it ourselves. It takes an utter demolition of our pride and rebellion to get us to this point. We can’t do that – only God can.

Perhaps my own story will illustrate. I suffered from fibromyalgia for 14 years. It was horrible. I lost count of the times that I prayed for God to kill me. But during this long, dark time He revealed some things to me. One big one was my pride. All my life had been one success after another and guess who took credit for all of it? Me. I failed miserably to thank God and recognize that He was blessing me by giving me good fortune in life. God didn’t necessarily make me sick just to teach me this lesson. But I did learn it. The disease didn’t leave me for many more years after this revelation. So, He knew there were other lessons for me to learn.

To make a long story short, God miraculously healed me of my disease on November 6, 2006, at a seminar on biblical health in Thomaston, GA. The cause of my sickness was, at its core, anger and unforgiveness. Demonic forces used that scar on my soul to make me sick, like pouring gasoline on a fire. That’s the gist of it. Racism was also a part of it. Not surprising considering some of my childhood influences. The anger, unforgiveness, and ungodly attitude to other image-bearers of God were unacceptable behaviors. And God wanted to purge those from me just as He had done with my pride.

What resulted was not only physical healing but a new spirit of love, forgiveness, patience and color blindness towards others. I learned that God is a loving Father and had a purpose all along for my suffering. See how stubborn I was; it took 14 years for me to get it. But He wasn’t done with teaching me about trust.

In more recent years I have struggled mightily with overseeing my Dad’s healthcare and finances. He now has dementia and is not always a very nice person. This situation stressed me out so badly a couple of years ago that my health began to suffer: headaches, irritability, anger, and helplessness. This went on for about a year. What made it so much worse was that Dad during this stage of his disease was so distrustful to those of us who were only trying to take care of him. This has always been a trait of his, but this time it really hurt.

So, one day, I was praying for the Lord to help me deal with my Dad. A thought suddenly entered my mind as clear as day. It was this: “Your problem with your Dad is that it upsets you that he doesn’t trust you. How do you think I feel when you don’t trust Me to handle your problems?” It wasn’t a voice per se, but I had no doubt who the source of this thought was. I broke down and fell to the floor in complete surrender and deep repentance. It took bringing me to the point of a nervous breakdown to cause me to trust God.

Since learning these lessons life itself has not become easier. But how I respond to trials and troubles has completely changed. It’s almost as if the Lord has created in me a new ability that I didn’t have before. And that’s just what it is: I have learned – through some very painful experiences – to trust Him with complete trust. You see, if I hadn’t experienced those difficult times, there is no way I would be able to ‘roll with the punches’ as I do now. And God certainly wouldn’t have called me to the pastorate.

As I prepare a sermon on suffering (from 1 Peter 4) I struggle with how to convince my flock that rejoicing in trials is even possible. Some of them hurt so badly it rips my guts out to hear their stories. Yeah, I pray for them. But what I really want for them is to learn this lesson about suffering. Yes, it hurts. But rejoice anyway because God is using this momentary affliction to create something in you, to change you, to teach you something. But whatever it is, you can rest in Him and have joy because your heavenly Father does love you with a perfect love and He wants more than anything for you to become who He intended you to be. And only He knows how to get you there. Trust Him, rejoice, be glad, surrender, submit, receive the lesson He has for you. The only way to believe anything I say here – or what Peter wrote – is to try it. It is hard, I know, to look to the heavens and praise God when your grandchild is suicidal or your son is an addict or your marriage is coming apart – or any number of things. But that is exactly what God wants you to do.