He Loves Us. He Lets Us Suffer.
“He Loves Us. He Lets Us Suffer.”
Somewhere along the way, we began to believe that suffering for our faith is legalistic.
We fell in love with the idea of a wealthy, generous Heavenly Papa who would never want us to experience an earthly life involving pain, longing, or loneliness.
We decided that wealthy dads don’t ever want their children to hurt. They want their kids to be happy all the time.
Any divine expectation for an obedience that pinches—any sacrifice that feels like a death—must be equal to a need to perform to qualify for his love.
And we know the gospel isn’t legalistic, so God can’t want us to hurt. Right? That wouldn’t be true, paternal love.
But several false equivalencies are present here. And to work through those, Biblical principles can help bring clarity.
1. We know that following Jesus will involve suffering on earth. Not only do we see this play out by example in the lives of the same apostles who taught us about the enormity of the gospel, but we are also taught very clearly that our new life in Christ will involve learning hope and focus during times of deep personal sacrifice and pain. We are told that our new lives will involve giving up sensual, physical pleasures that feel normal to non-believers. We are told that we may be abandoned by those close to us, mocked, and even put to death.
Though the yoke of Christ is light, it’s light because He has promised to sustain and resource us through our passing, refining years of faith on this planet—not because Christianity is a free pass to do whatever feels good while we are here.
2. The magnitude of God’s love doesn’t mean we get to be our own gods. While the Bible uses paternal language for our relationship with God, it also uses terms like “bondslave” and “obedience.” The love of God is absolutely enormous, but it’s an honest, refining love that draws us into deeper alignment with his holiness. It’s not a spineless, shapeless warmth that affirms whatever we want holiness to be.
This is difficult for me, by the way. I’m a strong, thinking person and have really struggled with trusting God’s supremacy in certain realms. But if he is the holy, ultimate creative force behind all that exists—loving him will involve granting him the authority to lead me in ways that ask me to respect his will above mine. And because of what he says about the condition of a fallen world and my lingering flesh tendencies, that’s going to hurt sometimes. In all of this, he will still love me profoundly. My pain will never negate his affection. Suffering is just part of the faith dynamic until all is made new.
3. Misunderstanding about what God’s willingness to let his loved ones suffer has corrupted political power in America. Conservatives often complain that the left has redefined grace to the point of removing God’s authority, but we have also made a similar error. We have assumed that God doesn’t want believers in America to suffer for stances they take in their jobs or in the public sphere.
We have been willing to sacrifice our moral principles, desperate to keep wicked leaders in power who promise to protect our rights. In essence, Christian conservatives have committed the same large-scale error Christian progressives have. We have been so determined to avoid pain that we have demanded God’s love excuse our deceitful thirst for political power that will prevent us from suffering in any way.
As hard as it is to hear, the Bible teaches us that there is a benefit to pain. Suffering forces us to look our idols straight in the eyes, struggle over letting them go, and learn to embrace God more wholeheartedly. Entitled protections—personal or legal—can never teach us intimacy like suffering in faith can.
Earth years are a classroom. Some of us will be betrayed here and learn the security of our identity as our hearts break in human relationships. Some of us will spend decades wrestling with impulses, learning our identity in Christ through these wars.
Some of us will lose jobs. Some will be misunderstood and mocked, accused unfairly.
Some of us will have to learn to sing in prisions of various sorts.
This is going to be as painful, and messy, and confusing for us as it was for believers of the first century. We will despair like Paul and want to die.
We will fail and learn the enormity of grace—after try to find ways around obedience with excuses and false allegiances that seem “almost holy.”
We will have to walk away from certain connections that feel like life.
As we suffer, we will not be earning God’s love. His love is secure. Our tremblings and our stumblings cannot destroy his commitment to us. But his love will lead us onward and upward through pain, so that our souls mature.We will begin to identify our false gods and begin to let them go. We will begin to walk with eternal vision inside temporal lives.As the war rages, we will find that suffering in faith has the ability to cut away all sorts of harmful baggage from which we have long desired to be free. We will learn that there is a higher sort of paternal love that isn’t just soft and indulgent—but is careful, and focused— willing to allow pain in the rapidly fleeing earthly lives of beloved children for the sake of helping them discover unshakable joys.
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“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.
For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.”
Questions.
Does your version of Christianity find a way around suffering in the flesh?
Does it give you permission to do what God forbids?
Does it encourage you to rally behind worldly forces that violate God’s commands but promise physical safety?
What benefits are you missing as a result of trying to avoid suffering?
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http://www.thistleandtoad.com/wwwthistleandtoadcom/writings/2019/11/19/pukvqdyl3dala0fo1u7a6ts5o4ypy8
“The Ninth Wave” by Ivan Aivazovsky