The Suffering of the Saints

Scrolling through Facebook, I see people posting pictures of their vacations, birthdays, anniversaries, new additions to the family, and other celebrations. It seems as if most people I know are “living their best life.” I see smiling faces, children playing, and happy families pictured, yet I realize that each picture is only a single moment in time. Happiness in this world is fleeting, and the truth is that those moments promote a false reality. All around us there are natural disasters of every sort: wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, floods, tornados, and droughts, for example. And where there aren’t natural disasters, there are cancers, amputations, broken limbs, drownings, mental illnesses, addictions, suicides, shootings, COVID cases, and more. Yet there are very few Facebook posts about personal suffering.

The Bible teaches that suffering is our lot in life ever since the fall. When God pronounced the curse on Adam and Eve, all living things were now subject to misery and death because man’s sin had soiled God’s perfect creation. Decay entered the world, and living things began to experience the law of increasing entropy, better known today as the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Noted biochemist Isaac Asimov explained the Second Law of Thermodynamics this way:

“The universe is constantly getting more disorderly! Viewed that way, we can see the Second Law all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order; how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself and that is what the Second Law is all about.”

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is undisputed among the scientific community; disorder and collapse eventually will happen to everything. Yet even before scientists identified this law, the Bible was teaching the same thing:

“In the beginning, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing, you will change them, and they will be discarded.”  Psalm 102:25-26: ESV

Entropy, then, is the result of the curse, and not only brings disorder, death, and decay, but also suffering and sorrow. Jesus taught often about suffering. You may know the verse where He said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

If Jesus said we will have trouble in this world, did He mean everyone? The Second Law of Thermodynamics is a universal law, applicable to everyone and everything. So, yes, everyone will suffer, but not in the same way. Suffering can come in many forms—physical, emotional, psychological, and so on. Wars and natural disasters are all around us! Disease and death pursue us all.  But we should not be discouraged when suffering comes, as it surely will. In my own life, I have suffered the death of my father when I was 15, breast cancer at the young age of 37, a house fire, divorce, financial instability, and living with an autoimmune disease, among other things. I have cried out and struggled with how much I could bear, and why me, again, Lord? I’m certain that many of you have been through the same thing! I must constantly remind myself of the truth in this verse.

So, when Jesus said for us to take heart for He had overcome the world, He meant that everyone will suffer in some way as a result of the fall, but the suffering of this world is only temporary, for this world is not our home! Jesus himself suffered for us, time and again, through disappointments with those closest to Him, through angry crowds lashing out at Him, through religious leaders seeking to discredit Him, and ultimately through His agonizing death on the cross. His suffering on the cross is almost unimaginable. I can scarcely conceive of My Lord sweating drops of blood in anguish while praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, withstanding a mock trial, then taking 40 lashes before having to drag that heavy cross, being stripped of his clothes and wearing only a crown of thorns, hanging naked and impaled with nails, and finally, feeling the rejection of the Father, even for a moment, after all He had done for us and while still praying for us! Such thoughts bring my own temporary suffering into perspective, and I now consider it an honor to share in the suffering of One who suffered for me as He did.

The Apostle Paul suffered mightily and yet grew mightily as a result of it, saying, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame.” Romans 5:35

Peter, too, suffered mightily, and was empowered to teach about it: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” 1 Peter 4:12-13

So, the Bible teaches that suffering is the lot of man, but the Bible also teaches that one great day the Earth, as God intended it to be, will be restored, and entropy will cease. Death and decay will die. Suffering will cease. Every tear will be wiped away. Revelation 21:4 states, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

 Happiness in this world may be fleeting, but we can have peace amidst it all just by turning our troubles over to Jesus. “And the peace that passes all understanding will keep our hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus” (Phillippians 4:7) if we but trust in Him. Trust is the key! We must trust and give our pain to God, as Laura Story says so well in her song, “I Give Up:”

“…What if faith is simpler than I’ve made it be

Just a simple trusting in your love for me

For when I give up, I gain
When I let go of having my own way
When I learn to see my surrender as a brand new start
To know the fullness of my father’s heart
My father’s heart…”