Does My Suffering Have a Purpose?

We live on a planet spinning around the sun in a state of sin-cursed decay. Leave an apple out and it will begin to rot. Get a cut on your hand and it can become infected. Over time the strength of our heart weakens and the cartilage lining our joints erodes away and our minds grow weary. Our bodies age and the environment around us decays. As human beings we all experience our mortality. You cannot live here without some experience of suffering. Suffering is the experience of anything that is difficult. Our mortality is only part of that.

Suffering is any form of aching, waiting, sitting, toiling and loss. In many ways its simply something that is continuously uncomfortable or painful that applies pressure to us. It is not easy and it doesn’t just go away. With God and his sovereignty, I argue the answer is yes. Our suffering has purpose. No person or psychic has all the answers and no Christian cliché can really give us a just answer for our individual sufferings. Not having all the answers now is part of the suffering unfortunately. But rather fortunately, it’s this situation that makes our faith grow, the value of which far surpasses explanations. But boy do we crave explanations from God immensely. So we suffer in this way too.

And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.
Romans 8:28 AMP

There is good that can come out of suffering. Sometimes all we have to do is reflect on our own life. Xray school for me was hands down the worse season of my life so far and yet out of it God helped me build a life and really out of that suffering came everything I have now. Also it not only has helped me directly, but has allowed me to help so many others beyond what I can even understand. Everything in this life is connected and we cannot really comprehend how it all works out for good all the time. Many things can’t really be explained away, like the death of a child, the spouse who is losing their fight against cancer, the vast number of people around the world struggling just to survive another day… there is so much suffering in the world. In odd ways its what brings us all together as human beings and what can bring us back to the Lord.

I look up to the mountains—
does my help come from there?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth!
Psalms 121:1-2 NLT

When life gets really hard we naturally go to what comforts us and what helps us cope. We all do this without even registering it. Some get home and reach for a 12 pack of beer. Some grab a package of Oreos. Others return to old addictions, some new addictions. It’s really telling what we reach for when we are under pressure, because it’s the very first place we go. This pattern is second nature to us. We want food or alcohol or really anything to comfort us. We want an escape of some kind.

I wish I could say I always turn to God in tough times, but I can’t. I don’t always. I turn to ways to distract myself and that can look like all kinds of things from online shopping to watching movies and shows all day. Those things may not sound that bad, but even simple things when done excessively can lead to bigger issues that can ruin a person’s life (e.g. credit card debt, bankruptcy, social distancing, declining mental health, agoraphobia, alcoholism, morbid obesity).

Hard times can cause us to stumble or it can be used as a opportunity for us to cling to who and what matters the most: the Lord and our relationship with him. This can be done through prayer, studying and consuming God’s word, being still, resting, and in growing healthy relationships with others. Being vulnerable with God can be hard and even intimidating, but with time it gets easier. We can literally talk to God about anything. I am a flawed human being and I cherish the times when people I know share really hard things with me from terrible ongoing sin in their life to their biggest most embarrassing insecurity about themselves or anything else they are mortified to talk about. God values our vulnerability and is filled with far more love for people than I am. If I cherish these moments with people, how much greater does God cherish those shared moments with us in prayer with him.

Prayer can be so crucial in times of distress, but that’s hard when God is invisible to us. It can feel like we are leaving a voicemail rather than actually interacting with him in real time, but pray anyway. We don’t receive any joyful rush or dopamine hit or haptic feedback when we pray like food and drugs and social media do for us. Praying isn’t easy. You don’t feel like doing it and you don’t feel like you get much out of it, but feelings be damned. Pray anyway. Even when it’s hard. That is when prayer is needed the most.

Jesus was not sheltered from suffering. He suffered like we do and then more, enduring a great suffering on our behalf. So we know Jesus experienced what it was like to be born a man and to live in a human body. We pray to a God who knows heartache and suffering, pain and loss. Our God knows and understands the human experience.

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NLT

Suffering can also teach us many valuable things like patience, resolve, perseverance, and loyalty. It also can teach us the value of things like good health, having received an education, having a child, having a mom or dad even if they weren’t the best parents, etc. For many that do with out, these things that we take for granted sometimes are really big things. Some of us also have the great opportunity of having God-centered people to speak to in tough times. God works through people too to comfort us just as he works through us to comfort others. Just like suffering can bring us closer to Him, it can also bring us closer to the people around us because they are suffering too.

When I have to park far away at the grocery store I refuse to grumble about it. I am an able-bodied young woman who is fortunate enough to be able to walk the distance easily. How fortunate I am to be young and healthy! Some no longer have either and some never received both. I realized this after following a young woman on Instagram who was paralyzed from the waist down from a car accident. She was still living a full and beautiful life and I wondered “what am I doing with mine?”

Suffering can have great purpose. It can redirect people to Jesus who saves and can therefore save a person’s life. It can teach the sufferer righteous values and the onlooker the precious value of what they have been given. To sum it up, suffering has the power save, heal, and grow not just one person, but many beyond what we can understand.