What Suffering Means

More on the theme of suffering from Colin Smith:

"Do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord or ashamed of me his prisoner... That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed." 2 Timothy 1:8, 12 (NIV)

Why does Paul tell Timothy not to be ashamed? Why would suffering make Paul ashamed? We have a hard time separating suffering and shame. Suffering raises two questions that lead to shame if we don't know how to answer them.

Does suffering mean God has failed?
Paul spends his life serving the Lord and ends up chained in a prison in Rome. Imagine Timothy trying to share the gospel with an unbeliever in Ephesus. "How can you believe in a God of love who allows his own apostle to languish in jail?"

The world's view is that if God is loving and He is powerful, then He must be able and willing to deliver us from all suffering. So, why is Paul in prison? "My tears have been my food day and night,while men say to me all day long, 'Where is your God?'"(Psalm 42:3)

The first instinct of the unbeliever looking at suffering is to conclude that God has failed. You can see why Timothy might have been ashamed. Evangelism would be easier if God didn't let all these disasters happen.

Does suffering mean that we have failed?
The believer has a different question. In the story of Job, when Job suffered greatly, his friends came to comfort him. The friends were believers. They were quite sure that God had not failed, and so in their minds that only left one alternative and that was that Job had failed. There must be some sin for which Job was being disciplined.

We find the same assumption about suffering in the Gospels: "As he went along, he [Jesus] saw a man blind from birth.His disciples asked him [notice this is a question coming from the believers],'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?'"John 9:1-2 (NIV)

Jesus' disciples hold a deep conviction that all suffering is a direct consequence of sin. If this man had become blind at age 20, instead of at birth, they would assume it was the result of some sin in his life. Now they are wondering, "Where is the sin?" Was it a past sin of the parents that brought this consequence on him? Or was it the man's own future that God already knew about before the man was born?

We are deeply convinced that suffering and shame belong together. That's why among Christians our deepest question is often, "Does this mean that God is judging me for something I have done?"

Pain is a platform
When suffering comes, the first instinct of the unbeliever is to think that God has failed. The first instinct of the believer is to think that we have failed. Either way the assumption is that suffering and shame belong together: "'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus. 'But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.'" John 9:3 (NIV)

This is the biblical view of suffering. Far from being evidence of shame, the pain in this man's life is a platform on which God's glory will be revealed. When you experience pain, it's good to pray that God's work will be displayed in your life.