Don’t Run From Suffering; Embrace It

Don’t Run From Suffering; Embrace It

Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat—I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. –Luke 9:23-24 (THE MESSAGE)

Nobody wants to suffer. I sure don’t. In fact, most of us would have to admit that we have spent most of our lives doing everything we can to avoid suffering. In our modern world, we expect a cure for every illness, a replacement for every loss, a fix for every failure. We are shocked and shaken when unexpected, unwanted pain interrupts our lives. None of us have to go looking for suffering. Suffering intrudes uninvited into our safe existence, and we are never the same.

Jesus must understand our natural inclination, and yet he tells us not to run from suffering. To run from suffering is to refuse to see God’s hand at work in the midst of it. To run from suffering is to reject the lessons God has for you in it. It is to resent the plan and purpose of God that is being accomplished through the suffering.

While Jesus tells us not to run from suffering, he suggests we do more than simply endure it. He admonishes us to embrace it. He wants us to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and to focus on what there is to learn in the suffering. He invites us to draw closer to him in the midst of our suffering. There’s freedom there, and he’s inviting us into the glory and joy of it.

To embrace suffering is to welcome God’s work in your life even in the most unimaginable circumstances. To embrace suffering is to enjoy God’s presence in your life even when you are filled with questions for him. To embrace suffering is to enter into a deeper relationship with God that you could not have enjoyed without experiencing penetrating pain. The suffering not only makes you crave such a relationship, it gives you the capacity to savor it. Ultimately, to embrace suffering is to allow your now broken heart to be more easily rebroken by the things that break the heart of God. To embrace suffering is to become more aware of and more apt to engage with the suffering in the world around you. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it and find yourself enriched and renewed.

My Teacher in suffering, everything in me tells me to run from the hurt in my life, and yet you bid me to linger and even embrace it. Allow me to feel your embrace as I open myself to the hidden gifts of suffering.

DIGGING DEEPER