This world is fallen and full of suffering. The decaying of this earth is evident all around us, even though todays science tries to convince us that the earth started out as decay and has progressed to its current “superiority.” Most of our life’s mission is to remove suffering from mankind. We have decided that with enough education and control we can make this earth a perfect place. We will find the cure for all the effects of sin! We will find a pill to fix all emotional ills, a treatment for all physical ills, a method for all mental ills, and a stage for all spiritual ills. We shall not accept the consequences of sin… or see any purpose in suffering.
Our first reaction to anyone we hear of suffering is usually always the exact same of that of Peter… “God forbid it!”
From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
Matthew 16:21-23
Jesus announced that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer… the suffering was in the purpose of God from the beginning. The suffering was the only way to bring salvation to mankind. However, Peter was not on board.
God forbid it!
God forbid that you, the one I love, should ever be mistreated, hurt, or have to suffer in any way. God forbid that you go through any pain. God forbid it. Not you! Peter never even took a moment to let the words of the One He had just pronounced the Christ, the Son of the Living God, sink in. As a matter of fact He rebuked Him. Can you imagine? Peter rebuking the Son of the Living God? Can you just imagine the pain and fear that shot through Peter’s heart as he heard these words of Jesus? It would have to be a pretty emotional moment for him to rebuke his Teacher. This suffering made no sense to him at all. He did not want to see the One he loved suffer. Do any of us?
When we hear of anyone going through any kind of suffering, our first knee-jerk reaction is pull out the Scripture reference a couple of verses above this passage from Matthew 16…
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
Matthew 16:19
We start casting out cancer cells, rebuking illness in the name of Jesus, binding the suffering and loosing the healing as if we are God. “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” Then when the cancer doesn’t listen and the illness remains and the suffering continues we find ourselves questioning our faith, our god, our prayers, and we even find ourselves making excuses for our god… and I use a lower case “g” on purpose in this context.
How does Jesus respond to Peter’s knee-jerk reaction of God forbid it?
“Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
Get behind me Satan? What? I mean Peter just doesn’t want to see the one he loves suffer… how could that be Satan? Isn’t Satan the one who inflicts and causes all suffering, so someone wanting the opposite of that and keeping that suffering from happening must be on God’s side right?
Not according to God.
”We use a term quite often here, “needless suffering.”
I disagree with this term.
I don’t believe that suffering is ever needless…or purposeless.
We see this fact biblically in the life of Christ and in the history of the early church. Jesus healed. He made the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear. He cleansed the leper, cured the lunatics, and raised the dead. After His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension He sent His apostles out all over the world doing the same to validate their words were His words and their power was His power.
The sufferings remind us that we are fallen.
The sufferings remind us that we are helpless.
The suffering remind us that we need a Savior.
The sufferings cause us to look out from ourselves.
The suffering allow the works of God to be displayed in us.
Suffering is never needless or without purpose.
As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
John 9:1-3
Last week during my 9-year-old Bekah’s bedtime devo, one of the questions asked was, “What has God done to show His power to you?“
Bekah’s response was quick. She immediately said, “Aunt Tracy and Aunt Phillis. God saved Aunt Tracy and Aunt Phillis has had breast cancer, colon cancer, and now has liver cancer, but God is taking care of her”
My sister Tracy was in a horrible car accident, she still suffers pain from this accident until this day. My sister-in-law Phillis has been fighting some form of cancer for years and takes regular chemo treatments, but both these women suffer with grace. They still love their God and I dare saythey love Him more today than they did before their sufferings began.
And as a result of their sufferings, when their nine year old niece sees them, she thinks of the glory of God, of the power of God, of the works of God.
For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.
1 Peter 2:19
These women didn’t do anything to deserve these sufferings…there was no particular sin that they openly and purposely participated in to bring on these sufferings. They came upon them simply because this world is fallen and sufferings come as a result.
When we look back at the acts of our Christ, think, would these people have ever came to Him had they not been experiencing sufferings? Would those who witnessed their sufferings ever have put forth the effort and energy to get them to Jesus had they not shared in their sufferings as they witnessed them?
No beloved, just because we don’t like suffering, does not mean that is needless or without purpose.
I have learned that before I pray, I am to ask God how I am to pray, because I do not know the greater purpose behind the circumstances.
Our human reaction to suffering is to remove it from ourselves and others as quick as possible…but sometimes, no most of the times, the sufferings are meant to bring us into the very presence of God, because without them, sin and Satan convince us that we don’t need Him.
In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.
Hebrews 5:7-9
—submitted by Nicole Vaughn, Proven Path Ministries, US
LCC on October 10, 2013 at 2:05 am
Thank you Nicole for writing so clearly about this topic on suffering. I was going through some tough times and only recently I realised how easily we can be deceived in our human thinking. The story of Lazarus raised from the dead in John 11 reminded me on the importance of seeing things/circumstances in God’s perspective. And we can do that as we renew our mind (Romans 12:2) with His words and live in the Spirit (Romans 8 :26-28). God loves us too much to allow us to go through circumstances by ourselves.