A Few Thoughts This Lord’s Day - #14

This morning in church, the pastor mentioned that our current Western society has something unique in its zeitgeist in that it is the first time in history that a culture doesn’t have a place for suffering.  Our culture, for the most part, doesn’t assign meaning to suffering. We run from it.  We try to fix it.  We suppress it.  We hate it.  He said that Christians need to fight against the idea of suffering being meaningless.  Our suffering belongs to Jesus that we might reach others.  I’m going to ruminate on that idea for a while.  My suffering belongs to Jesus that I might reach others. 

If the above sounds like some kind of martyr complex to you, I can see how it might… but I’d say it’s different.  Christians don’t (ideally) seek after suffering to show how “good” they are… that would be a martyr complex.  Instead, the Bible teaches that suffering:

exists,

has meaning,

unites us to others,

&, ultimately, 

unites us to Christ. 

The depths of suffering and all the what-ifs surrounding suffering are not things I pretend to understand, but I do want to hold fast to the scriptures regarding suffering and trust God that there is meaning in it all.

………………………………………………

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.  For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.