There’s no cry so loud, yet rarely heard, as that which comes from the bowels of suffering. This suffering occurs in the deepest part of our inner being. To reveal it makes one vulnerable to the core: vulnerable to misunderstanding, misrepresentation and abuse. 

Most suffering results from something ruthlessly torn from us, something that is rightfully ours. If one has an insufficient opportunity to express the inner grief, gain understanding, or lacks a big enough reason to endure, then, loneliness becomes a haunt for lies from the pit: lies about God’s love; God’s faithfulness; God’s nearness.  .

A close friend who had been a two term governor is facing such an experience. He left office amid a quagmire of misrepresentations, all of which were proven false. Still, that doesn’t erase the damage inflicted by his enemies. He’s struggling to rebuild his life, which is proving to be a strenuous task.

“Why all this suffering, Ron? Why me?” he asked.

The question is valid. While governor, he embraced the challenges. But time and trouble inevitably erodes one’s nerve. That’s when such questions demand answers. Today, his isolation is suffocating.

Is God simply observing this man’s struggle, not being overly concerned with the outcome? Is God neglecting to remember the sacrificial efforts he put forth to help the people of his state? Does God not care that he is sinking in the quicksand of lies? When will God rise up to defend and deliver him? Why does God seem lax concerning his promise to vindicate and protect this man?

Have you ever been in such a time as this? If so, let’s reach for a reason big enough to strengthen you to overcome the sense of betrayal and abandonment.

Understandably, we feel the need to draw God into our suffering, knowing that with one spoken word he can end it. Is it possible, however, that we need to reverse our view completely. If Christ is the Creator and Redeemer, is not our suffering actually his suffering? Rather than trying to get God to enter our suffering, perhaps we need to realize that our suffering is actually his suffering.    

That was the Apostle Paul’s view. In fact, Paul held this view so strongly that he wrote, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11).

Horrific experiences will impose themselves upon us all. Where is the Lord when such things occur? Is he simply watching and doing nothing? Is he having fun watching us squirm? No, the fact is that it’s happening to him as well.

Christ came to enter our suffering, which in fact is his suffering. He is the Author of creation. Everything that happens in creation happens first to the Creator. When you are violated he is violated. Is this not the implication of Christ’s words, “As you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me?”

I wonder, for example, how many early Christians pled for God to get involved in their suffering. After all, Saul of Tarsus was bent upon arresting and executing as many as possible. Little did they know that Jesus would confront Saul with the question, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). It wasn’t, “Why do you persecute my people; but rather, me!”

All of life affects the Creator before the creature. Like the early church, we enter his sufferings.      

Here’s a vital truth: Christ became like you in suffering so that you in turn can become like him in suffering. In the squeeze of Gethsemane (the wine press) both you and Christ are experiencing the same thing. Herein there is a union occurring that could not come any other way. Thus, when you see him face-to-face in eternity you will know him as he is.

How will you know him? Everything is made after its kind. You have become the kind of Christ in spiritual birth. Just as growth follows birth, so knowing the Author of your kind comes through suffering. You will know him to the degree you become like him. You become like him to the degree you share in his sufferings.

Here’s what hinders us from grasping this: we do not view our suffering as an assault on Christ; but rather, as an assault on us. We think our suffering is too mundane to be attributed as Christ’s sufferings.

But that’s not true. We are the created and all things happen first to the Creator then to us. If we don’t see it this way then we are always trying to get Christ to enter our suffering rather than finding fellowship with him in the suffering.  

Paul wanted to know Christ as deeply as possible; thus he desired whatever suffering it would take to develop his relationship with Christ—to make him after Christ’s kind. And the deeper he knew Christ in suffering the higher he knew him in his resurrection power. Paul embraced this process as a primary goal in is life: see, Philippians 3:10-11.

Let’s illustrate this. Rather than feeling abandoned by God when persecuted, he sought relationship with Christ in the suffering and looked forward to the deliverance in the power of his resurrection.

What none of us like is that death must precede resurrection. There is a serious dying to self if we are to come to know Christ in suffering. We can determine how well we are dying to self by the level of quietness in our hearts during the suffering, despite being stripped of things that are proper and good, even rightfully ours.

For instance, knowing that he may perish in Jerusalem Paul wrote, “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and compete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24).

Having died to self interest Paul could throw his life into Christ’s cause, despite being foretold that persecution awaited him at every turn. What was the result? He experienced many resurrections in Christ’s power, such as impacting countless millions of people for two thousand years.

Stated another way, Paul could not have written “We are more than conquerors” without first writing, “I consider that out present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

It’s by abandoning our love affair with self and entering the death of Christ that we are resurrected to grand purposes in this life before the final resurrection into eternity.

In it all, however, the object is not accomplishments; but rather knowing—knowing Christ.

Two people can live side-by-side and never know each other because they live in two different worlds of interest and experience. But let them go through shared suffering and they become bound together after their kind. They have an unspoken knowing of one another that could not be forged any other way. The deeper their shared suffering, the deeper they are of a kind.

When Christ’s authority was rejected, he willingly laid it down and escorted his captors to his own cross. Likewise Paul did not exercise his authority in Christ when unfairly beaten and imprisoned. He even apologized for speaking harshly to an unregenerate high priest.

While Jesus and Paul never denied their God-given authority, they allowed men to strip them of it. Thus they were bound in mutual disgrace. When they met in heaven they knew each other on this level.

Both Jesus and Paul were rejected by their own people; another level of knowing each other.

Have you been betrayed? You’ll know Jesus on that level.

Have you been stripped of dignity? You’ll know Jesus to that level.

Consider a raw violation—rape. Was not Jesus raped when his body was shredded by whips? His body was invaded and his rights stripped away—that’s a form of rape. If you have been violated in any way you’ll know him on that level.

Floods of illustrations come to mind. If you trust God’s purposes, you will find a shared suffering bringing a deeper knowing of Jesus Christ. And when you meet him on high it will be at these points that you will embrace each other.

Don’t rob yourself by running from suffering. Don’t curse it. Paul wanted it. So should you. It’s where you come to know Christ in the crucible of suffering where he shapes and develops you into his kind. The rewards of knowing him more fully will eternally outweigh the momentary pain. Paul’s cry was not for deliverance so much as to know him more fully.

Stop dreaming of a better life when suffering passes. The object is not a better life, but rather, a better relationship with Christ. It’s in knowing him and becoming like him that a better you is resurrected. Further, Christ’s resurrection power establishes your labor eternally.

Said another way, what we do for Christ is admirable, but temporal. What he does through you by his resurrection power are the accomplishments that stand forever.   

Whether it’s my governmental friend laboring to recapture his life from the thievery of lies or some crisis unique to your life, keep in mind that it’s happening to Christ first. You are privileged to enter into his suffering. Therein you are coming to know him in ways impossible by any other path.

 

Prayer: “Dear Heavenly Father, it’s not about getting you to see my suffering, but to realize my suffering is actually entering into your suffering. This is your world and your grief is great. Thank you for the privilege of feeling a small portion of the agony still known to your heart through my momentary suffering. Help me to meet you and know you more deeply through my experience, which is actually your experience. I’m only sharing in it. Thank you, Amen.”

 

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