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Good suffering

Sunday, May 1, 2005

1 Peter 3:14-18
If you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

In the first pages of his masterpiece The Road Less Traveled Scott Peck observes that although life is difficult, we make it much more difficult when we try to avoid what he calls "legitimate suffering." He points out that all the world's great religions say the same thing. To live on earth means I will experience suffering. And that isn't such a bad deal.

I can only speak such stern truth to myself; when I try to say these words to a friend suffering while I am not, then they sound hollow and false. But I would at least like to believe them for my own life, sooner rather than later, and ideally even while I'm in the midst of the present pain.

"If you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed." That means I don't need to whine about the unfairness of it all. Feeling sorry for myself is a waste of time. Searching out some personal or communal sin for which I am being punished isn't worthwhile either. I am missing the main point, which is that God wants me to suffer because he loves me. Suffering changes me, turns me away from my own satisfaction, points me toward God.

Get angry with God because I am suffering for what is right? He doesn't resent my anger, but he doesn't relieve the suffering. Why should he? After all, he loves me. He knows just what I need and will not shrink from walking me through it. He loves me in my anger, but he is not influenced by it.

The relief I feel at his presence is priceless. It is unmeasurable, incomparable. But the suffering is not necessarily over; I just experience it differently. He walks alongside me, but there is no lifting me out of this vast exhausted pain until God knows I am ready. I know I'm ready when He says so. Not when I say so.

Thinking like this makes life joyful. It is simpler. It's easier to know deep inside me that the sky is not falling. Everything is "small stuff." God is here and he is not silent. He loves me. And he will take me home.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and staff, they comfort me.



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