Learning to Suffer Well

This summer I had the privilege of speaking at a CFO Camp.  It was an awesome experience, and I just love the whole organization and the amazing things God during these weeks.  Just spectacular stuff, all around, the people, the program, the location.  There was another speaker there who said this profound thing.  He said his entire presentation had been about learning how to suffer well.  I looked at those around me and thought...wow.  Who wants to know about that?

Henri Nouwen in The Selfless Way of Christ, states that  we like John must diminish and Christ must grow larger in us, evidenced as we walk as he walked.  How did Jesus walk?  Paul says Jesus emptied himself, thinking equality with God was not something that can be grasped, and God raised him up and gave him the position above all.  Not grasping, not pushing, not demanding, but waiting and believing that God will honor what God said he would do.  The end of that sounds good, but....the beginning sounds pretty humiliating.  Who wants to do that?

I am the child Paul ranted and raved at; quit craving milk!  It's time to move on to the meaty stuff, the stuff that requires chewing, that requires digestion, that might even cause some discomfort.  But the milk is good, and it requires little from me and being the baby is the best.  Someone else cares for my needs, someone else has to handle the tough stuff, someone else has to make it all right.  Come and grow is the repeated call, eat some meat, be a big girl.

Somehow sanctification sounds like it would be more fun.  I see a journey along a beautiful country lane, gorgeous array of colors from the lovely flowers and shrubs and trees that line my pathway.  Warm homey cottages that house happy, hospitable people who run out to offer me water, or rest, or even another glass of milk.  From time to time there is a delightful little stream, running clear cool water, gentle sunlight dancing, a comfortable bench here and there to allow me to put my feet in.  There may be a pebble or two along the way that cause me to gently swerve, every once in a great while a dragonfly buzzing past, even (in the far off distance) a small green snake, to remind me that I need to stick to the pathway. It's all very much like the House at Pooh Corners I used to read  with my kids .  Fun, sweet, gentle, joyful, and I become all those things too, just because I can.

This walk through learning to suffer well, emptying myself, becoming nothing,  implies an entirely different pathway.  It winds back and forth and I can't see where it is going to end up.  It climbs stiff hills that make me breathless. The bugs that dive bomb my head, and the massive rocks I fall over, and the short tempered people I meet, are not wearing big smiles or look warm or hospitable.  Instead of offering me water and rest, I am asked for all I have and a little more.  I become exhausted, and hopeless, and lost, and hurting.  Father Gus, from the monastery in  Conyers, GA, once told my friend Valerie that the way to humility was humiliation.  Ouch.  Rather than suffer well, becoming nothing, I am the baby on the side of that path, yelling angrily at God, "You are doing this wrong!"

But I am trying to be better.  I am not excited about this path, honestly.  It is completely petrifying to me, all this unknown twisting and turning.  I don't think I am up to the hiking, and the climbing, and the endurance this stuff takes.  I am fairly sure that I can't do it.  That's a lie, I know I can't.  I can't handle the pain, or do the work that is required.  If God doesn't do it, it wont happen.  Will God do what God says he will do?  Can I really put that kind of trust and confidence, my every hope, my very being?   If I can't, then all is lost.  Seconds drag on and I realize I am holding my breathe.  Is God up to the challenge?

That's the secret of course.  It isn't suffering when you are on the road home, its healing.  I know Who's waiting for me, I know that my arrival is anticipated and my journey will be made with God's strength.  I can't say I am without fear, or that my trust in God is so strong that I will never need to ask the question:  "Are you still in here with me, God? "  Isn't it amazing that God doesn't wait for me to have it all right before we start the journey.   These days God doesn't always hold my hand, or walk where I can see Him.  Sometimes when I look up, I don't see even the reflection of His glory.  I can walk much further than I once could without the constant reminder, but there are places when the path scares me, and the way is very challenging, and I am limping from a particularly tough climb.  Then I fall into a heap and I cry and I ask God again, are you here with me?  God's graciousness abounds and once again He fills me with his love. 

We can suffer well when we suffer in love.  Thanks be to God.