A couple years ago family rode took a bike ride on the Route of the Hiawatha Trail along the Idaho-Montana state line. The bike ride begins and ends with a 1.661 mile long tunnel. There is a long stretch of that tunnel where you can’t see either end. You can’t see where you entered, and you can’t see any exit in the distance. The only light you can see is from the little flashlights on each bicycle. As I rode it, I imagined what it would be like to walk through that tunnel with no lights at all. How unnerving would that feel if there was no one else in that tunnel with you, and you had no light and no sense of how far you had gone or how much longer you had to travel?
We all have experienced pain and suffering. My family and I have been going through a constant series of trials, disappointments, difficulties, and spiritual attack for the last couple years. None of these problems have been particularly traumatic individually, but there is a stacking effect that can occur when there is a constant stream of problems and bad experiences which can accumulate into a feeling of hopelessness. After a couple years of enduring this, it feels like I am in that long tunnel, and I have no idea how much longer it will be before I see the exit. I have started to catch myself feeling hopeless that there will ever even be an end to this dark tunnel of human suffering. I have to fight the temptation to become cynical about whether God even really cares about my plight at all, because He seems to be ignoring my prayers about it.
Today, I was contemplating some common questions people often ask when they don’t understand why a good God allows bad things to happen. These questions come in many forms like: “If God is so Good, why did he allow sin to exist in the first place?”, “How can a good God allow children to die of cancer?”, or “I can’t believe in a God that would allow [insert something horrible that happens here]”. For a while now, when I hear this type of question, I have been responding with “Because God is merciful and gracious”.
That answer may not seem obvious at first, but it becomes clear as you really consider how prominently God communicates his attributes of mercy and grace to us in scripture. Imagine if you had a debit card with an infinite supply of money in the account, but you were stranded on a deserted island where there was not a single store to spend that money. That abundant supply of potential spending power would be completely useless to you or anyone else. In order for God to demonstrate his attributes of abundant mercy and grace, there must exist beings that are in need of that mercy and grace. What good is it to be merciful and gracious if there is no one who needs forgiveness or who would be able to appreciate His demonstration of grace? So, we see that in order for God to express his mercy and grace, sin must exist.
Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
Psalm 116:5
our God is merciful.
Until today, I would have stopped that line of thought there. However, I was struck with a thought this afternoon as I contemplated suffering. While my answer above explains the need for sin to exist in the first place, it does not fully address the suffering that we continue to experience as a result of evil existing. I know that I am saved, and I can see the pattern of victory over sin in my life. However, I would say that my recent suffering has felt greater than it ever did when I was experiencing less victory over sin. If I am sinning less, and God is making me more righteous, why isn’t my suffering lessening?
There is so much pain and suffering that we experience in this world. We have a tendency to want to find answers and reasons for the suffering we experience. We cry out to God “Why, God why? When will this end?!”. We start to examine ourselves and the decisions we made and sometimes there is a direct correlation where we obviously made a sinful choice and have to suffer the consequences. However, there are other times where it just doesn’t make any sense! We are engaged in our relationship with God, and seeing victory over sin, and we don’t see any rhyme or reason for the sudden problems or calamities that befall us.
In the old testament story of Job, we see that God allowed great suffering to fall on his faithful servant simply to prove to Satan that Job would remain faithful regardless of his circumstances. Even though Job was a faithful servant and was not engaged in any obvious practice of sin, he still suffered loss and calamity well beyond anything I have ever experienced. We have a tendency to look at that story and feel a little cynical towards God that he let his faithful servant suffer so much just to prove a point. We can even get through that story and start to build a false view that God really wasn’t concerned about how much Job suffered. The enemy wants us to read that story and start to think of God as some detached cosmic observer playing games with people’s lives, and using us as pawns in some sort of cosmic chess game with Satan.
I want to offer a different perspective on why God allows us to experience suffering that we don’t feel like we deserve. I believe it is so that we can have just a taste of the unimaginable suffering that Christ took upon Himself when He came to this earth and offered Himself as the sacrifice for our sins. It is because of His great love that He came and shared in our suffering. When Job suffered, Christ was there suffering alongside Job! When I suffer… when you suffer, Christ is there alongside us bearing the greater portion of our suffering and enabling us to endure the portion that we are experiencing. It is through our suffering that we can even begin to have a reference point to understand the suffering of Christ.
In Acts 5, we can see that the apostles understood how much Christ suffered, and they were full of joy that they were found worthy of suffering for His name. This isn’t because they were masochists who enjoyed suffering, but because they truly understood and appreciated how much Christ suffered on their behalf.
40 and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. 42 And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.
Acts 5:40-42
God created us to be in relationship with Him. He is not just some distant observer! He is in your very heart and knows every thought and emotion you experience. He loves you and cares for your and He has suffered unimaginably for you to have the opportunity to join him in that relationship. He engages with us at a heart level and has provided everything we need to walk with him, talk with Him, and experience all aspects of his character. The character of Christ is that He suffered for our sake. As we engage in relationship with God through prayer, scripture meditation, and discipleship, our character is being transformed to be more like Christ. He allows us to suffer even when we don’t deserve it so that we can better understand and appreciate His willingness to suffer for us. Whatever we are experiencing on this earth is helping us understand Christ better and is shaping us to be more like Him.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7
We could not appreciate the comfort and hope we have been granted through the mercy and grace of God if we did not ever sin, and we could not appreciate the suffering of Christ if we never experienced any suffering ourselves. These are two sides of the same coin! So next time you feel like you are in that long dark tunnel of suffering, remember that you are not alone! Christ is traveling that tunnel with you and providing the light you need to take the next steps. He knows the pain and the suffering that you feel. He endured much worse for you. He suffered for you, and He suffers with you! He allows you to continue to experience suffering so you can better understand Him and appreciate the relationship you have with Him! There is a light somewhere at the end of that tunnel, and you can rest assured that Jesus knows exactly where that tunnel ends because he has already traveled that tunnel for you.